Multifunctional scaffolds

Lastly, multifunctional scaffolds are also attractive platforms for treating bone diseases. As discussed before, 2-D and 3-D scaffolds can serve both as a cell/tis-sue support and a drug carrier. Recent research has attempted to extend the scope of scaffold functions and fabricate smart scaffolds that can simultaneously incorporate disease sensing, diagnosis, imaging, and treatment. To realize this, numerous nanomaterials can be used to fulfill these functions and immobilized into/onto scaffolds. For... 

Comer, E., Rohan, E., Deng, L., and Porco, J.A. (2007) An approach to skeletal diversity using functional group pairing of multifunctional scaffolds. Org. Lett, 9, 2123-2126. 

Ravichandran, R., Gandhi, S., Sundaramurthi, D., Sethuraman, S., and Krishnan, UA4. (2013) Hierarchical mesoporous silica nanofibers as multifunctional scaffolds for bone tissue regeneration. /. Biomater. Sci. Polym. Ed., 24,1988 2005. 

Wang C, Wang M. Dual-source dual-power electrospinning and characteristics of multifunctional scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. J Mater SciMater Med 2012 23( 10) 2381-97. 

Taken together, the results indicate that bioglass multifunctional scaffolds, incorporating selected biopolymer coatings and ions present great potential for application in bone tissue regeneration. 

The nanostructured molecular arrangements from DNA developed by Seeman may find applications as biological encapsulation and drug-delivery systems, as artificial multienzymes, or as scaffolds for the self-assembling nanoscale fabrication of technical elements. Moreover, DNA-protein conjugates may be anticipated as versatile building blocks in the fabrication of multifunctional supramolecular devices and also as highly functional-... 

The following sections are devoted primarily to the introduction of two different types of functional units. A distinction is made between dendrimers with bi-functionalised molecular periphery (Fig. 3.7 Types A, B, C, D) and those in which one function is located in the core and the other in the branching units or in the periphery (Types E, F). Multifunctional dendrimers of type G with different functional units in the core, scaffold, and periphery have so far played only a minor role and will therefore only be treated briefly here, particularly since compounds of this type will be considered in greater depth in Chapter 6. 

Whereas the bifunctionalisation strategies presented so far are relatively straightforward, the synthesis of multifunctional dendrimers with more than two kinds of functional units requires considerable synthetic effort. Preparation of dendrimers with a functional core and additional functional units in the dendrimer scaffold and in the periphery requires de novo synthesis of the entire dendrimer scaffold, with the synthesis conditions having to be tolerable for all groups (Fig. 3.15). 

The generic pathway (Fig. la see Color Insert) commences with formation of a precursor particle or procapsid, whose assembly usually requires at least three components the connector or portal protein (one oligomer), the shell or coat protein (a fixed complement, according to the capsid size or T number), and a scaffolding protein (a potentially variable copy number). On completion of the procapsid, DNA packaging is initiated and proceeds in linear fashion from the replicating concatemer into the procapsid, powered by terminase, a multifunctional protein complex with both ATPase and endonuclease activities. 

Furthermore, as carbohydrates provide a source of multifunctional molecules with well-defined stereochemistry, they have been used as scaffolds to present pharmacophoric groups in a distinct arrangement. The first so-called carbohydrate privileged stmcture has been a somatostatin agonist which contained a deoxyglucose nucleus [148] (O Fig. 32). Somato-... 

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