PASTORINO L.

A simple procedure to incorporate enzymes (horseradish peroxidase, HRP, and lactate oxidase, LOx) within alginate hydrogels is reported with electrochemiluminescence (ECL) used to detect the enzymatic reactions with the corresponding substrates. First, HRP and LOx were successfully immobilized into CaCO3 microspheres, followed by the...

The work investigated the possibility to develop an easy scalable treatment capable of modifying only the surface of chitosan-based materials, limiting the degradation of the bulk and the burst release of a drug, without compromising the properties of the polymeric matrix. To this aim, microparticles of CHI were superficially coated with...

In this work, an innovative approach to covalently anchor cyclodextrins (CDs) on the surface of submicrometric particles, prepared from an equimolar mixture of poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) and poly(D-lactide) (PDLA), was developed. The idea of the applied method lays in the potential reactivity of amino CDs towards the polymer functionalities to...

This manuscript reports the development of functional 3D scaffolds based on chitosan (CHI) and graphite oxide nanoplatelets (GO) for neuronal network growth. To this aim, CHI microparticles, produced by alkaline gelation method, were coated with GO exploiting a simple template-assisted assembly based on the electrostatic attraction in an...

Methods for studying brain function and disease heavily rely on in vivo animal models, ex-vivo tissue slices, and 2D cell culture platforms. These methods all have limitations that significantly impact the clinical translatability of results. Consequently, models able to better recapitulate some aspects of in vivo human brain are needed as...

The degradation of cell seeded 3D scaffolds is an important step both for the in vivo and in vitro use of biomimetic matrices mimicking the extracellular matrix. In this respect, we investigated the possibility of enzymatically degrading a chitosan microbeads scaffold supporting a mature 3D neuronal network. To this purpose, the enzymes...

In this work, novel composite microparticles based on chitosan (CHI) and graphite nanoplatelets (GNP) were developed as 3D scaffolds for neuronal cells. The aim is to improve the scaffold strength while maintaining its ability to sustain cell adhesion and differentiation. An air-assisted jetting technique followed by physical crosslinking is...