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The cross-linked enzyme (CLEs) of Thermomyces lanuginosa lipase (TLL) was prepared in an isocyanide-based multi-component reactions (ICMRs) platform by applying three di-acidic cross-linkers to unveil more factors contributing to the functional properties of CLEs. The linkers were 1,11-undecanedicarboxylic acid, azelaic acid, and adipic acid with 11, 7, and 4 carbon lengths, respectively, providing a proper tool to investigate the effect of linker length on the activity, stability, and selectivity of the resulting CLEs. The immobilization yields of 60-90 % and the specific activities of 168, 88.4 and 49 U/mg were obtained for the CLEs of 1,11-undecanedicarboxylic acid, azelaic acid, adipic acid, respectively. The lower activity of azelaic and adipic acid-mediated CLEs compared to the soluble TLL (110 U/mg) was explained by in silico calculations. The results revealed that as opposed to 1,11-undecanedicarboxylic acid, both linkers tended to penetrate the enzyme active site, thus resulting in a major inhibitory effect on the enzyme functionality. The thermal and co-solvent stability of the immobilized derivatives improved compared to those of free TLL. The selectivity of CLEs was also examined by catalytic release of main omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil, presenting the highest selectivity of 22 for the CLEs of azelaic acid., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Its hydrophilic property and poor water resistance prevent the application of starch in electrospun nanofibers for biomedical applications. In this paper, we apply a periodate oxidation-adipic acid dihydrazide crosslinking strategy to electrospun starch nanofibers and develop a new nanofiber material with excellent mechanical strength, superior water resistance, and excellent cytocompatibility. The crosslinked starch nanofiber membranes exhibit a Young's modulus up to 2.65 MPa in the wet state, can maintain 91.0% of their initial mass after four weeks' incubation in simulated body fluid, and do not cause toxicity to L929 fibroblast cells. The control nanofibers prepared with a conventional glutaraldehyde crosslinking strategy show only a 60 kPa Young's modulus, retain only 31.9% of their initial mass after four weeks in simulated body fluid, and cause toxicity to cells. The crosslinked starch nanofibers with high mechanical strength, excellent water resistance and good biocompatibility are promising for biomedical applications.

Polysaccharides display poor cell adhesion due to the lack of cell binding domains. This severely limits their applications in regenerative medicine. This study reports novel cross-linked pectin nanofibers with dramatically enhanced cell adhesion. The nanofibers are prepared by at first oxidizing pectin with periodate to generate aldehyde groups and then cross-linking the nanofibers with adipic acid dihydrazide to covalently connect pectin macromolecular chains with adipic acid dihydrazone linkers. The linkers may act as cell binding domains. Compared with traditional Ca 2+ -cross-linked pectin nanofibers, the pectin nanofibers with high oxidation/cross-linking degree exhibit much enhanced cell adhesion capability. Moreover, the cross-linked pectin nanofibers exhibit excellent mechanical strength (with Young's modulus ∼10 MPa) and much enhanced body degradability (degrade completely in 3 weeks or longer time). The combination of excellent cell adhesion capability, mechanical strength, and body degradability suggests that the cross-linked pectin nanofibers are promising candidates for in vivo applications such as tissue engineering and wound healing. This cross-linking strategy may also be used to improve the cell adhesion capability of other polysaccharide materials.

Adipic acid, an abundant and nontoxic compound, was used to dissolve and cross-link chitosan. After the preparation of chitosan films through casting technique, the in situ amidation reaction was performed at 80-100 °C as verified by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR). The reaction was accompanied by the release of water which was employed to investigate the reaction kinetics. Accordingly, the reaction rate followed the first-order model and Arrhenius equation, and the activation energy was calculated to be 18 kJ/mol. Furthermore, the mechanical properties of the chitosan films were comprehensively studied. First, optimal curing conditions (84 °C, 93 min) were introduced through a central composite design. In order to evaluate the effects of adipic acid, the mechanical properties of physically cross-linked (uncured), chemically cross-linked (cured), and uncross-linked (prepared by acetic acid) films were compared. The use of adipic acid improved the tensile strength of uncured and chemically cross-linked films more than 60% and 113%, respectively. Finally, the effect of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) on the mechanical performance of cured films, in the presence of glycerol as a plasticizer, was investigated. The plasticized chitosan films reinforced by 5 wt % CNFs showed superior properties as a promising material for the development of chitosan-based biomaterials.

Adipic acid diselenoester was developed as an efficient cross-linker for covalent protein conjugation with a variety of small molecular haptens, including mono- and disaccharides, peptide, fluorescence dye, and nicotine. Compared to the counterparts of N-hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) and p-nitrophenyl (PNP) linkers, the diselenoester linker demonstrates improved balance between reactivity and stability and coupling of haptens to proteins under mild conditions with high incorporation efficiency.

Collagen gels from Southern catfish (Silurus meridionalis Chen) skins were prepared via the self-assembly of collagen molecules and simultaneous cross-linking with the N-hydroxysuccinimide adipic acid derivative (NHS-AA). The doses of NHS-AA were converted to [NHS-AA]/[NH2] ratios (0.025-1.6, calculated by the [active ester group] of NHS-AA and [ε-NH2] of lysine and hydroxylysine residues of collagen). When the ratio < 0.05, collagen gels were formed by collagen molecule self-assembly, resulting in the opalescent appearance of collagen gels and the characteristic D-periodicity of partial collagen fibrils, the collagen gel ([NHS-AA]/[NH2] = 0.05) displayed a small increase in denaturation temperature (Td, 42.8 °C), remaining weight (12.59%), specific water content (SWC 233.7) and elastic modulus (G' 128.4 Pa) compared with uncross-linked collagen gel (39.1 °C, 9.12%, 222.4 and 85.4 Pa, respectively). As the ratio > 0.05, disappearance of D-periodicity and a gradual change in appearance from opalescent to transparent suggested that the inhibition of NHS-AA in the self-assembly of collagen molecules was more obvious. As a result, the collagen gel ([NHS-AA]/[NH2] = 0.2) had the lowest Td (35.8 °C), remaining weight (7.96%), SWC (130.9) and G' (31.9 Pa). When the ratio was 1.6, the collagen molecule self-assembly was markedly suppressed and the formation of collagen gel was predominantly via the covalent cross-linking bonds which led to the transparent appearance, and the maximum values of Td (47.0 °C), remaining weight (45.92%) and G' (420.7 Pa) of collagen gel. These results indicated that collagen gels with different properties can be prepared using different NHS-AA doses.

In order to improve the properties of collagen gel, N-hydroxysuccinimide activated adipic acid derivative (NHS-AA) was introduced into the formation of collagen fibrils. NHS-AA with different [NHS-AA]/[NH2] ratios (0.1-1.5, calculated by [ester group] of NHS-AA and [NH2] of lysine and hydroxylysine residues of collagen) was added after, simultaneously with or before the formation of collagen fibrils (abbreviated CAF, CSF and CBF, respectively) to obtain different collagen gels. With the same dose of NHS-AA, the cross-linking degree for CAF was lower than those for CSF and CBF. The formation of collagen fibrils was restrained by NHS-AA for CSF and CBF while that for CAF was unaffected. When the dose of NHS-AA increased from 0.1 to 1.5, the water contents of CSF and CBF increased while that of CAF had no obvious change. With lower dose of NHS-AA (0.1), CAF possessed higher value of G' (87.3Pa) and the best thermal stability (47.6°C). As the ratio of [NHS-AA]/[NH2] increased to 1.5, CSF had the maximum value of G' (288.8Pa) and CAF had the best thermal stability (52.9°C). These results showed collagen gels with different properties could be prepared by adding NHS-AA with different adding sequence and dose., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Native potato starch (NS) and retrograded starch (R - obtained via freezing and defrosting of a starch paste) were used to prepare starch acetates: NS-A and R-A, and then acetylated distarch adipates: NS-ADA and R-ADA. The chemically-modified preparations produced from retrograded starch (R-A; R-ADA) were characterized by a higher degree of esterification compared to the modified preparations produced under the same conditions from native potato starch (NS-A; NS-ADA). Starch resistance to amylolysis was observed to increase (to 30-40 g/100 g) as a result of starch retrogradation and acetylation. Starch cross-linking had a significant impact on the increased viscosity of the paste in the entire course of pasting characteristics and on the increased values of rheological coefficients determined from the equations describing flow curves. The produced preparation of acetylated retrograded starch cross-linked with adipic acid (R-ADA) may be deemed an RS3/4 preparation to be used as a food thickening agent., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Intra-molecular cross-linking has been suggested as a method of obtaining distance constraints that would help to develop structural models of proteins. Recent work published on intra-molecular cross-linking for protein structural studies has employed commercially available primary amine (lysine, the amino terminus) selective reagents. Previous work using these cross-linkers has shown that for several proteins of known structure, the number of cross-links that can be obtained experimentally may be small compared to what would be expected from the known structure, due to the relative reactivity, distribution and solvent accessibility of the lysines in the protein sequence. To overcome these limitations, we have investigated the use of cross-linking reagents that can react with other reactive side chains in proteins. We used 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) to activate the carboxylic acid containing residues, aspartic acid (D), glutamic acid (E) and the carboxy terminus (O), for cross-linking reactions. Once activated, the DEO side chains can react to form "zero-length" cross-links with nearby primary amine containing residues, lysines (K) and the amino terminus (X), via the formation of a new amide bond. We also show that the EDC-activated DEO side chains can be cross-linked to each other using dihydrazides, two hydrazide moieties connected by an alkyl cross-linker arm of variable length. Using these reagents, we have found three new "zero-length" cross-links in ubiquitin consistent with its known structure (M1-E16, M1-E18 and K63-E64). Using the dihydrazide cross-linkers, we have identified two new cross-links (D21-D32 and E24-D32) unambiguously. Using a library of dihydrazide cross-linkers with varying arm length, we have shown that there is a minimum arm length required for the DEO-DEO cross-links of 5.8 A. These results show that additional structural information can be obtained by exploiting new cross-linker chemistry, increasing the probability that the protein target will yield sufficient distance constraints to develop a structural model.

Chemical cross-linking has proved successful in combination with mass spectrometry as a tool for low-resolution structure determination of proteins. The integration of chemical cross-linking with Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometry to determine protein interfaces was tested on the calcium-dependent complex between calmodulin (CaM) and a 26-amino acid peptide derived from the skeletal muscle myosin light chain kinase (M13). Different amine-reactive, homobifunctional cross-linkers and a "zero-length" cross-linker were employed. The covalently attached complexes were separated from nonreacted proteins by one-dimensional gel electrophoresis, and the bands of interest were excised and in-gel digested with trypsin. Digestion of the cross-linked complexes resulted in complicated peptide mixtures, which were analyzed by nano-HPLC/nano-ESI-FTICR mass spectrometry. The distance constraints obtained by chemical cross-linking were in agreement with the published NMR structure of the CaM/M13 complex, pointing to residues Lys-18 and Lys-19 of M13 being cross-linked with the central alpha-helix of CaM. Thus, the integrated approach described herein has proven to be an efficient tool for mapping the topology of the CaM/M13 complex. As such it is applicable as a general strategy for the investigation of the spatial organization of protein complexes and complements existing techniques, such as X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy.

The cross-linking effect of adipic acid dihydrazide (ADH) on polysaccharide derivatization can be evaluated by applying combination of elemental analysis and colorimetric assay. Elemental analysis is used for estimation of total ADH bound to polysaccharide and a colorimetric trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid assay is used to determine the part of ADH not involved in cross-linking. The difference of values expressed as molar ratios (per repeating unit) provides information on the amount of ADH involved in cross-linking the polysaccharides. Carboxymethylated polysaccharides were derivatized with different amounts of ADH to test the procedure. Analytical results showed that excess of ADH in the reaction only slightly decreased the cross-linking. The number of carboxyl groups remained unmodified even at high excess of ADH and high concentration of carbodiimide (EDC) coupling reagent.