Changing Circumstances and Diets
Christopher Cumo in Ancestral Diets and Nutrition, 2020
Insects feed several primates, including chimpanzees, numerous monkeys, G. gorilla, lemurs (species in the superfamily Lemuroidea), and humans. Although most Westerners abhor insects as filthy and repulsive, disgust is atypical. African, Asian, Australian, New Zealand, and American indigenes practiced entomophagy. As much as 80 percent of people eat one or more of the roughly 1,500 insect species on the global buffet.12 The celebrated cave art in Altamira, Spain, suggests that its inhabitants ate insects roughly 30,000 years ago. Silkworms (Bombyx mori) fed ancient China. Colombians and Brazilians prize the leafcutter ant Atta laevigata. South Africans eat caterpillars of the moth Gonimbrasia belina. Indonesians consume grasshoppers (species in the superfamily Acridomorpha), crickets (species in the genera Gryllus, Gryllodes, Teleogryllus, and Acheta), termites (species in the infraorder Isoptera), honeybees (Apis mellifera), and sago palm weevils (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus). A 1525 account described Amerindian consumption of fleas, spiders, and worms.13 Alaska’s Nunamiut ingest maggots of the fly Hypoderma tarandi. The beetle Udonga montana is popular in India. Local markets in Thailand bulge with termites, ant eggs, honeybees, silkworms, grasshoppers, and crickets.
Polymer Materials for Oral and Craniofacial Tissue Engineering
Vincenzo Guarino, Marco Antonio Alvarez-Pérez in Current Advances in Oral and Craniofacial Tissue Engineering, 2020
Silk fibroin is a natural fiber protein that has gained attention for biomedical applications requiring an improvement of mechanical properties (i.e., flexibility and high tensile strength). Silk fibers extracted from domesticated silkworm Bombix mori (B. mori) are the best characterized. The amino acid composition of silk consists of glycine, alanine, serine (Vepari and Kaplan 2007; Ma et al. 2018). Silk is composed of a filament core coated with sericin, a hydrophilic protein. Sericin is degummed during the silk purification process leaving the core fibers corresponding to silk. For tissue engineering applications, silk fibroin has shown to have better mechanical properties than other natural polymers, excellent biocompatibility and its degradation products are non-toxic (Bai et al. 2015).
Natural Products and Stem Cells and Their Commercial Aspects in Cosmetics
Heather A.E. Benson, Michael S. Roberts, Vânia Rodrigues Leite-Silva, Kenneth A. Walters in Cosmetic Formulation, 2019
Silk is an ingredient that was discovered in China and has been used in various industries for thousands of years. Silk is a filament secreted by silkworms of Bombyx mori silk moths. Silk is comprised of about 25–30% sericin, a sticky material that surrounds the fibroin protein that is found in the center of silk. Traditionally, sericin had been degummed from silk, and its disposal caused environmental concerns, particularly water pollution. Sericin is primarily composed of the amino acid serine, and the protein has antibacterial, antioxidant, irritation-reducing and moisturizing properties (Barel et al., 2014). Ground silk proteins can be used in facial powders and foundations, and can also improve hair texture and shine (Corbeil et al., 2000).
Silk fibroin nanoparticles for enhanced bio-macromolecule delivery to the retina
Published in Pharmaceutical Development and Technology, 2019
Pianpian Yang, Yixuan Dong, Di Huang, Chune Zhu, Hu Liu, Xin Pan, Chuanbin Wu
RSF was prepared as previously reported (Wongpanit and Rujiravanit 2012). Briefly, cocoons of silkworm B. mori were cut into small pieces, boiled in 0.5% (w/w) Na2CO3 solution at 100 °C for 20 min, and washed with deionized water to remove sericin. After cooling down in water to the room temperature, cocoons were boiled again in the same condition. The degummed silk fibers were added in Ajisawa’s reagent (CaCl2:Ethanol:H2O, 1:2:8) after completely drying at 40 °C. The mixture was incubated at 78 °C under stirring with 300 rpm to form a clear solution followed by collection of SF solution. After centrifugation at 3000 rpm for 20 min, SF solution was dialyzed in cellulose tubes (Viskase, USA; MWCO 8000–14 000 Da) for 3 days to remove CaCl2, small molecules, and other impurities. The resultant SF solution was freeze-dried to obtain RSF and stored in a dryer at room temperature until required for further studies.
Tamanu oil potentiated novel sericin emulgel of levocetirizine: repurposing for topical delivery against DNCB-induced atopic dermatitis, QbD based development and in vivo evaluation
Published in Journal of Microencapsulation, 2019
Ravi Raj Pal, Poonam Parashar, Indu Singh, Shubhini A. Saraf
Levocetirizine dihydrochloride (LCZD) was obtained as a generous gift from M/s Windlass Biotech Ltd, (Dehradun, India). Tamanu oil was purchased from M/s Deve Herbs (New Delhi India). Silkworm cocoons were obtained as a kind gift from Department of Applied Animal Sciences, BBA University Lucknow, India. Dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB) reagent and dialysis membrane (molecular weight cut off 12,000–14,000) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, Missouri, United States). Span 20, span 80, tween 20, tween 80, Isopropyl myristate (IPM), PEG 400, PEG 200, dimethylsulphoxide and PEG 600 were purchased from SD Fine Chemical Ltd. Mumbai. Olive oil, oleic acid and macadamia oil were obtained from Sugandhco, Lucknow, India. Membrane filters (0.45 μm) were purchased from Hi-Media Mumbai, India. All other chemicals were purchased from Himedia, Mumbai India unless otherwise specified. In-house double distilled water was used throughout the study.
Extended release formulations using silk proteins for controlled delivery of therapeutics
Published in Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, 2019
Burcin Yavuz, Laura Chambre, David L Kaplan
Silk proteins are produced in fiber form by silkworms (e.g. B. mori, mulberry silk) or orb-weaving spiders (non-mulberry silk) and have been explored to understand their properties and potential as biomaterials. The first documentation of biomedical applications with silk are from 150 AD, where it was described as a suture material. In the 1500s, there are reports of sterilizing silk sutures in boiling oil, while the first sterile silk suture was officially introduced into clinics in 1869 [6]. The first attempt to reverse engineer silk cocoons and generate reprocessed silk was at the beginning of twentieth century, while the first patent for the biomedical use of a regenerated silk appeared in the 1960s [7]. Lyophilized silk powders, silk films, and gels have been patented as wound dressings, corneal coatings or blood vessels in the 1990s, while research and commercialization activities have increased in the 2000s, especially in the USA [7].
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