TY - GEN A1 - Weiskirchen, Sabine A1 - Weiper, Katharina A1 - Tolba, René H. A1 - Weiskirchen, Ralf T1 - All you can feed BT - some comments on production of mouse diets used in biomedical research with special emphasis on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease research T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The laboratory mouse is the most common used mammalian research model in biomedical research. Usually these animals are maintained in germ-free, gnotobiotic, or specific-pathogen-free facilities. In these facilities, skilled staff takes care of the animals and scientists usually don’t pay much attention about the formulation and quality of diets the animals receive during normal breeding and keeping. However, mice have specific nutritional requirements that must be met to guarantee their potential to grow, reproduce and to respond to pathogens or diverse environmental stress situations evoked by handling and experimental interventions. Nowadays, mouse diets for research purposes are commercially manufactured in an industrial process, in which the safety of food products is addressed through the analysis and control of all biological and chemical materials used for the different diet formulations. Similar to human food, mouse diets must be prepared under good sanitary conditions and truthfully labeled to provide information of all ingredients. This is mandatory to guarantee reproducibility of animal studies. In this review, we summarize some information on mice research diets and general aspects of mouse nutrition including nutrient requirements of mice, leading manufacturers of diets, origin of nutrient compounds, and processing of feedstuffs for mice including dietary coloring, autoclaving and irradiation. Furthermore, we provide some critical views on the potential pitfalls that might result from faulty comparisons of grain-based diets with purified diets in the research data production resulting from confounding nutritional factors. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1066 KW - animal experimentation KW - diet KW - nutrition KW - ingredients KW - lard KW - fibers KW - fructose KW - diet coloring KW - autoclaving KW - irradiation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-472460 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1066 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kedracki, Dawid A1 - Filippov, Sergey K. A1 - Gour, Nidhi A1 - Schlaad, Helmut A1 - Nardin, Corinne T1 - Formation of DNA-Copolymer Fibrils Through an Amyloid-Like Nucleation Polymerization Mechanism JF - Macromolecular rapid communications N2 - Conjugation of a hydrophobic poly(2-oxazoline) bearing tertiary amide groups along its backbone with a short single stranded nucleotide sequence results in an amphiphilic comb/graft copolymer, which organizes in fibrils upon direct dissolution in water. Supported by circular dichroism, atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and scattering data, fibrils are formed through inter- and intramolecular hydrogen bonding between hydrogen accepting amide groups along the polymer backbone and hydrogen donating nucleic acid grafts leading to the formation of hollow tubes. KW - DNA copolymers KW - fibers KW - hydrogen bonding KW - nucleation polymerization KW - self-assembly Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.201400728 SN - 1022-1336 SN - 1521-3927 VL - 36 IS - 8 SP - 768 EP - 773 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lützow, Karola A1 - Hommes-Schattmann, Paul J. A1 - Neffe, Axel T. A1 - Ahmad, Bilal A1 - Williams, Gareth R. A1 - Lendlein, Andreas T1 - Perfluorophenyl azide functionalization of electrospun poly(para-dioxanone) JF - Polymers for advanced technologies N2 - Strategies to surface-functionalize scaffolds by covalent binding of biologically active compounds are of fundamental interest to control the interactions between scaffolds and biomolecules or cells. Poly(para-dioxanone) (PPDO) is a clinically established polymer that has shown potential as temporary implant, eg, for the reconstruction of the inferior vena cava, as a nonwoven fiber mesh. However, PPDO lacks suitable chemical groups for covalent functionalization. Furthermore, PPDO is highly sensitive to hydrolysis, reflected by short in vivo half-life times and degradation during storage. Establishing a method for covalent functionalization without degradation of this hydrolyzable polymer is therefore important to enable the surface tailoring for tissue engineering applications. It was hypothesized that treatment of PPDO with an N-hydroxysuccinimide ester group bearing perfluorophenyl azide (PFPA) under UV irradiation would allow efficient surface functionalization of the scaffold. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy investigation revealed the successful binding, while a gel permeation chromatography study showed that degradation did not occur under these conditions. Coupling of a rhodamine dye to the N-hydroxysuccinimide esters on the surface of a PFPA-functionalized scaffold via its amine linker showed a homogenous staining of the PPDO in laser confocal microscopy. The PFPA method is therefore applicable even to the surface functionalization of hydrolytically labile polymers, and it was demonstrated that PFPA chemistry may serve as a versatile tool for the (bio-)functionalization of PPDO scaffolds. KW - biological applications of polymers KW - fibers KW - functionalization of polymers KW - microstructure Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/pat.4331 SN - 1042-7147 SN - 1099-1581 VL - 30 IS - 5 SP - 1165 EP - 1172 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER -