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Search of new strategies for the inhibition of respiratory viruses is one of the urgent health challenges worldwide, as most of the current therapeutic agents and treatments are inefficient. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) has caused a pandemic and has taken lives of approximately two Million people to date. Even though various vaccines are currently under development, virus, and especially its spike glycoprotein can mutate, which highlights a Need for a broad-spectrum inhibitor. In this work, inhibition of SARS-CoV-2 by graphene platforms with precise dual sulfate/alkyl functionalities is investigated. A series of graphene derivatives with different lengths of aliphatic chains is synthesized and is investigated for their ability to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 and feline coronavirus.
Graphene derivatives with long alkyl chains (>C9) inhibit coronavirus replication by virtue of disrupting viral envelope. The ability of these graphene platforms to rupture viruses is visualized by atomic force microscopy and cryogenic electron microscopy. A large concentration window (10 to 100-fold) where graphene platforms display strongly antiviral activity against native SARS-CoV-2 without significant toxicity against human cells is found. In this concentration range, the synthesized graphene platforms inhibit the infection of enveloped viruses efficiently, opening new therapeutic and metaphylactic avenues against SARS-CoV-2.
As virus outbreaks continue to pose a challenge, a nonspecific viral inhibitor can provide significant benefits, especially against respiratory viruses. Polyglycerol sulfates recently emerge as promising agents that mediate interactions between cells and viruses through electrostatics, leading to virus inhibition.
Similarly, hydrophobic C60 fullerene can prevent virus infection via interactions with hydrophobic cavities of surface proteins. Here, two strategies are combined to inhibit infection of SARS-CoV-2 variants in vitro. Effective inhibitory concentrations in the millimolar range highlight the significance of bare fullerene’s hydrophobic moiety and electrostatic interactions of polysulfates with surface proteins of SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, microscale thermophoresis measurements support that fullerene linear polyglycerol sulfates interact with the SARS-CoV-2 virus via its spike protein, and highlight importance of electrostatic interactions within it. All-atom molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the fullerene binding site is situated close to the receptor binding domain, within 4 nm of polyglycerol sulfate binding sites, feasibly allowing both portions of the material to interact simultaneously.
2D nanomaterials have garnered widespread attention in biomedicine and
bioengineering due to their unique physicochemical properties. However, poor functionality, low solubility, intrinsic toxicity, and nonspecific interactions at biointerfaces have hampered their application in vivo. Here, biocompatible polyglycerol units are crosslinked in two dimensions using a graphene-assisted strategy leading to highly functional and water-soluble polyglycerols nanosheets with 263 ± 53 nm and 2.7 ± 0.2 nm average lateral size and thickness, respectively.
A single-layer hyperbranched polyglycerol containing azide functional
groups is covalently conjugated to the surface of a functional graphene template through pH-sensitive linkers. Then, lateral crosslinking of polyglycerol units is carried out by loading tripropargylamine on the surface of graphene followed by lifting off this reagent for an on-face click reaction. Subsequently, the polyglycerol nanosheets are detached from the surface of graphene by slight acidification and centrifugation and is sulfated to mimic heparin sulfate proteoglycans. To highlight the impact of the two-dimensionality of the synthesized polyglycerol sulfate nanosheets at nanobiointerfaces, their efficiency with respect to herpes Simplex
virus type 1 and severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 inhibition is compared to their 3D nanogel analogs. Four times stronger in virus Inhibition suggests that 2D polyglycerols are superior to their current 3D counterparts.2D nanomaterials have garnered widespread attention in biomedicine and bioengineering due to their unique physicochemical properties. However, poor functionality, low solubility, intrinsic toxicity, and nonspecific interactions at biointerfaces have hampered their application in vivo. Here, biocompatible polyglycerol units are crosslinked in two dimensions using a graphene-assisted strategy leading to highly functional and water-soluble polyglycerols nanosheets with 263 ± 53 nm and 2.7 ± 0.2 nm average lateral size and thickness, respectively.
A single-layer hyperbranched polyglycerol containing azide functional groups is covalently conjugated to the surface of a functional graphene template through pH-sensitive linkers. Then, lateral crosslinking of polyglycerol units is carried out by loading tripropargylamine on the surface of graphene followed by lifting off this reagent for an on-face click reaction. Subsequently, the polyglycerol nanosheets are detached from the surface of graphene by slight acidification and centrifugation and is sulfated to mimic heparin sulfate proteoglycans. To highlight the impact of the two-dimensionality of the synthesized polyglycerol sulfate nanosheets at nanobiointerfaces, their efficiency with respect to herpes Simplex virus type 1 and severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 inhibition is compared to their 3D nanogel analogs. Four times stronger in virus Inhibition suggests that 2D polyglycerols are superior to their current 3D counterparts.
Understanding the mechanism of interactions of nanomaterials at biointerfaces is a crucial issue to develop new antimicrobial vectors. In this work, a series of water-soluble fullerene-polyglycerol sulfates (FPS) with different fullerene/polymer weight ratios and varying numbers of polyglycerol sulfate branches are synthesized, characterized, and their interactions with two distinct surfaces displaying proteins involved in target cell recognition are investigated. The combination of polyanionic branches with a solvent exposed variable hydrophobic core in FPS proves to be superior to analogs possessing only one of these features in preventing interaction of vesicular Stomatitis virus coat glycoprotein (VSV-G) with baby hamster kidney cells serving as a model of host cell. Interference with L-selectin-ligand binding is dominated by the negative charge, which is studied by two assays: a competitive surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based inhibition assay and the leukocyte cell (NALM-6) rolling on ligands under flow conditions. Due to possible intrinsic hydrophobic and electrostatic effects of synthesized compounds, pico- to nanomolar half maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50) are achieved. With their highly antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties, together with good biocompatibility, FPS are promising candidates for the future development towards biomedical applications.
Recycling of crosslinked fiber-reinforced polymers is difficult. Moreover, as they are often based on flammable resins, additional additives are needed. So-called “vitrimers” open the possibility of Recycling and reprocessing and repairing with dynamically crosslinked chemistries. To date, vitrimer-based composites still need flame retardant additives, such as organophosphates. An additive-free vitrimer composite has not been reported. Herein, we synthesized an intrinsic flame-retardant vitrimer, relying on vinylogous polyurethanes containing covalently installed phosphonates as flame-retardant units and prepared glassfiber-reinforced composites. We studied recycling and flame retardant properties and compared the data to phosphorus-free vitrimers and conventional epoxy resins (with and without additive flame retardant).
Our phosphonate-based vitrimer proved in first tests, a flame retardant effect comparable to commercial flame retardant resins. The bending strength and bending modulus for the phosphorus-vitrimer glass fiber composites were comparable to glass fiber composites with permanently cross-linked epoxies. In summary, we were able to prove that the covalent installation of phosphonates into vitrimers allows the preparation of recyclable and intrinsic flame retardant composites that do not need flame retardant additives. We believe this concept can be expanded to other polymer networks and additives to generate recyclable and sustainable high-performance materials.
Hemocompatible materials are needed for internal and extracorporeal biomedical applications, which should be realizable by reducing protein and thrombocyte adhesion to such materials. Polyethers have been demonstrated to be highly efficient in this respect on smooth surfaces. Here, we investigate the grafting of oligo- and polyglycerols to rough poly(ether imide) membranes as a polymer relevant to biomedical applications and show the reduction of protein and thrombocyte adhesion as well as thrombocyte activation. It could be demonstrated that, by performing surface grafting with oligo- and polyglycerols of relatively high polydispersity (>1.5) and several reactive groups for surface anchoring, full surface shielding can be reached, which leads to reduced protein adsorption of albumin and fibrinogen. In addition, adherent thrombocytes were not activated. This could be clearly shown by immunostaining adherent proteins and analyzing the thrombocyte covered area. The presented work provides an important strategy for the development of application relevant hemocompatible 3D structured materials.
An understanding of the interactions of 2D nanomaterials with pathogens is of vital importance to developing and controlling their antimicrobial properties. In this work, the interaction of functionalized graphene with tunable hydrophobicity and bacteria is investigated. Poly-(ethylene glycol)-block-(poly-N-isopropylacrylamide) copolymer (PEG-b-PNIPAM) with the triazine joint point was attached to the graphene Surface by a nitrene [2 + 1] cycloaddition reaction. By thermally switching between hydrophobic and hydrophilic states, functionalized graphene sheets were able to bind to bacteria. Bacteria were eventually disrupted when the functionality was switched to the hydrophobic state. On the basis of measuring the different microscopy methods and a live/dead viability assay, it was found that Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria are more susceptible to hydrophobic interactions than B. cereus bacteria, under the same conditions. Our investigations confirm that hydrophobic interaction is one of the main driving forces at the presented graphene/bacteria interfaces and promotes the antibacterial activity of graphene derivatives significantly.
Inhibition of respiratory viruses is one of the most urgent topics as underlined by different pandemics in the last two decades. This impels the development of new materials for binding and incapacitation of the viruses. In this work, we have demonstrated that an optimal deployment of influenza A virus (IAV) targeting ligand sialic acid (SA) on a flexible 2D platform enables its binding and wrapping around IAV particles. A series of 2D sialylated platforms consisting graphene and polyglycerol are prepared with different degrees of SA functionalization around 10%, 30%, and 90% named as G-PG-SAL, G-PG-SAM, and G-PG-SAH, respectively. The cryo-electron tomography (Cryo-ET) analysis has proved wrapping of IAV particles by G-PG-SAM.
A confocal-based colocalization assay established for these materials has offered the comparison of binding potential of sialylated and non-sialylated nanoplatforms for IAV. With this method, we have estimated the binding potential of the G-PG-SAM and G-PG-SAH sheets for IAV particles around 50 and 20 times higher than the control sheets, respectively, whereas the low functionalized G-PG-SAL have not shown any significant colocalization value.
Moreover, optimized G-PG-SAM exhibits high potency to block IAV from
binding with the MDCK cells.
Protein adsorption at the air–water interface is a serious problem in cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) as it restricts particle orientations in the vitrified ice-film and promotes protein denaturation. To address this issue, the preparation of a graphene-based modified support film for coverage of conventional holey carbon transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids is presented. The chemical modification of graphene sheets enables the universal covalent anchoring of unmodified proteins via inherent surface-exposed lysine or cysteine residues in a one-step reaction. Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) trough approach is applied for deposition of functionalized graphene sheets onto commercially available holey carbon TEM grids. The application of the modified TEM grids in single particle analysis (SPA) shows high protein binding to the surface of the graphene-based support film. Suitability for high resolution structure determination is confirmed by SPA of apoferritin. Prevention of protein denaturation at the air–water interface and improvement of particle orientations is shown using human 20S proteasome, demonstrating the potential of the support film for structural biology.
Polyglycerol (PG) coated polypropylene (PP) films were synthesized in a two-step approach that involved plasma bromination and subsequently grafting hyperbranched polyglycerols with very few amino functionalities. The influence of different molecular weights and density of reactive linkers were investigated for the grafted PGs. Longer bromination times and higher amounts of linkers on the surface afforded long-term stability. The protein adsorption and bacteria attachment of the PP-PG films were studied. Their extremely low amine content proved to be beneficial for preventing bacteria attachment.