Natural polymers advantages

Chemical nature Modified, water-soluble synthetic polymer Advantages ... 

Adsorbents are used in medicine mainly for the treatment of acute poisoning, whereas other extracorporeal techniques based on physico-chemical principles, such as dialysis and ultrafiltration, currently have much wider clinical applications [1]. Nevertheless, there are medical conditions, such as acute inflammation, hepatic and multi-organ failure and sepsis, for which mortality rates have not improved in the last forty years. These conditions are usually associated with the presence of endotoxin - lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or inflammatory cytokines - molecules of peptide/protein nature [2]. Advantages of adsorption over other extracorporeal techniques include ability to adsorb high molecular mass (HMM) metabolites and toxins. Conventional adsorbents, however, have poor biocompatibility. They are used coated with a semipermeable membrane of a more biocompatible material to allow for a direct contact with blood. Respectively, ability of coated adsorbents to remove HMM solutes is dramatically reduced. In this paper, preliminary results on adsorption of LPS and one of the most common inflammatory cytokines, TNF-a, on uncoated porous polymers and activated carbons, are presented. The aim of this work is to estimate the potential of extracorporeal adsorption technique to remove these substances and to relate it to the porous structure of adsorbents. 

Identification of components in environmental samples and in samples from laboratory studies of biodegradation and biotransformation is generally based on the application of MS coupled to either GC or LC systems. For environmental samples which may contain only small amounts of the relevant compounds, MS is particularly attractive in view of the extremely small amounts of samples — of the order of nanograms — which are required. An important additional advantage is that since the mass spectrometer can be interfaced with GC, LC, or capillary electrophoresis (CE) systems which incorporate separation procedures, pure samples are not required. Some salient issues in MS in the context of environmental application are summarized briefly as an introduction. Reference should be made to an exhaustive review (Burlingame et al. 1998) for instrumental details and aspects that are not covered here, such as MS of synthetic and natural polymers. 

In Chapters 15 and 16 the modification and degradation of respectively synthetic (e.g. PET, polyamides) and natural polymers (e.g. polysaccharides) are reviewed. It becomes obvious that biocatalytic modifications can offer advantages over chemical modifications therefore building a bridge between traditional polymerization techniques and enzymatic polymerizations. 

---