Lyotropic liquid crystal systems, such as reversed bicontinuous cubic and hexagonal mesophases, are attracting more and more attention because of their unique microstructures and physicochemical properties. Various bioactive molecules such as chemical drugs, peptides and proteins can be solubilized in either aqueous or oil phase and be protected from hydrolysis or oxidation. Furthermore, severa...

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) facilitate intercellular communication by carrying bioactive molecules such as proteins, messenger RNA, and micro (mi)RNAs. Recently, high-density lipoproteins (HDL) isolated from human plasma were also reported to transport miRNA to other cells. HDL, when isolated from human plasma, ranges in density between 1.063 and 1.21 g/mL, which grossly overlap with the repor...

This study reports the isolation of myxobacteria from soil collected from plains in north India. Based on the morphology and 16S rDNA sequence, the isolated myxobacteria were identified as Corallococcus sp., Pyxidicoccus sp., Myxococcus sp., Cystobacter sp. and Archangium sp. The myxobacteria were functionally characterized to assess their ability to produce antibacterial and anticancer metabol...

Delivery of bioactive factors is a very valuable strategy for articular cartilage repair. Nevertheless, the direct supply of such biomolecules is limited by several factors including rapid degradation, the need for supraphysiological doses, the occurrence of immune and inflammatory responses, and the possibility of dissemination to nontarget sites that may impair their therapeutic action and ra...

It has been a long-held assumption in ligand-based virtual screening that the bioactive conformation of a molecule is privileged. The assumption is that superior performance in 3D searching (pharmacophores, shape similarity) should be obtained when using the bioactive conformation of a query molecule for searching for other active molecules. A parallel assumption has been that extensive samplin...

Medicinal plants used for the treatment of epilepsy are potentially a valuable source of novel antiepileptic small molecules. To identify anticonvulsant secondary metabolites, we performed an in vivo, zebrafish-based screen of medicinal plants used in Southeast Asia for the treatment of seizures. Solanum torvum Sw. (Solanaceae) was identified as having significant anticonvulsant activity in zeb...

Dendritic structures, being highly homogeneous and symmetric, represent ideal scaffolds for the multimerization of bioactive molecules and thus enable the synthesis of compounds of high valency which are e.g., applicable in radiolabeled form as multivalent radiotracers for in vivo imaging. As the commonly applied solution phase synthesis of dendritic scaffolds is cumbersome and time-consuming, ...

Cyanobacteria are rich sources of structurally-diverse molecules with promising pharmacological activities. Marine cyanobacteria have been proven to be true producers of some significant bioactive metabolites from marine invertebrates. Macrolides are a class of bioactive compounds isolated from marine organisms, including marine microorganisms in particular. The structural characteristics of ma...

Mushrooms are widely appreciated all over the world for their nutritional value and medicinal properties. They have low fat, high protein and vitamins contents. Mushrooms contain several minerals and trace elements, as well as substantial amount of dietary fibers. Basidiomycetes mushrooms (phylum Basidiomycota) including agaric and bracket fungi are also producers of bioactive molecules and val...