Antioxidative study of Cerium Oxide nanoparticle functionalised PCL-Gelatin electrospun fibers for wound healing application

Skin wound healing involves a coordinated cellular response to achieve complete reepithelialisation.Elevated levels of reactive oxygen species(ROS)in the wound environment often pose a hindrance in wound healing resulting in impaired wound healing process.Cerium oxide nanoparticles(CeNPs)have the ability to protect the cells from oxidative damage by actively scavenging the ROS.Furthermore,matrices like nanofibers have also been explored for enhancing wound healing.In the current study CeNP functionalised polycaprolactone(PCL)-gelatin nanofiber(PGNPNF)mesh was fabricated by electrospinning and evaluated for its antioxidative potential.Wide angle XRD analysis of randomly oriented nanofibers revealed^2.6 times reduced crystallinity than pristine PCL which aided in rapid degradation of nanofibers and release of CeNP.However,bioactive composite made between nanoparticles and PCLgelatin maintained the fibrous morphology of PGNPNF upto 14 days.The PGNPNF mesh exhibited a superoxide dismutase(SOD)mimetic activity due to the incorporated CeNPs.The PGNPNF mesh enhanced proliferation of 3T3-L1 cells by^48%as confirmed by alamar blue assay and SEM micrographs of cells grown on the nanofibrous mesh.Furthermore,the PGNPNF mesh scavenged ROS,which was measured by relative DCF intensity and fluorescence microscopy;and subsequently increased the viability and proliferation of cells by three folds as it alleviated the oxidative stress.Overall,the results of this study suggest the potential of CeNP functionalised PCL-gelatin nanofibrous mesh for wound healing applications.

Forensic application of comet assay:an emerging technique

Postmortem interval(PMI)estimation is a recurring problem in the field of forensic medicine.Conventional methods are effective but are insufficient to estimate accurate and precise time of death or PMI.In addition,degradation of biological samples is another major problem in forensic science which affects the investigation process and misleads the result.Some previous studies reported that DNA fragmentation has strong correlation with PMI.DNA fragmentation increased with prolonged PMI.Comet assay is a rapid sensitive,versatile,reliable and cost effective technique that is specifically used for qualitative and quantitative estimation of nuclear DNA fragmentation.Due to this attribute,comet assay can help to estimate accurate and precise time of death for some extent that is for early PMI estimation.In addition,two confounding factors are responsible for DNA fragmentation:(1)micro-organism;(2)environmental condition.Here,comet assay plays a dual role:(1)partially degraded samples get repaired using repair enzyme;(2)accurate time since deposition can be measured without using repair enzyme.Furthermore,this assay can also help to identify potential exposures of environmental-released chemicals/toxicants and its deleterious effects on human population.In this way,comet assay shows its versatile applications that could be useful for forensic investigation.Therefore,with the help of this review,an attempt was made to explore the versatility of comet assay technique for forensic applications and its future perspective.