0000000000289449
AUTHOR
Radu A. Gropeanu
Fluorescent Core/Shell Nanoparticles for Specific Cell‐Nucleus Staining
The highly fluorescent perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxdiimide (PDI) chromophore is a popular dye and pigment because of its excellent chemical, thermal, and photochemical stability. Due to these outstanding properties, there have been several successful applications of PDI chromophores in various fields. Water-soluble and fluorescent PDI dyes have been used in biological applications such as the in vitro staining of cells and proteins. The combination of water solubility and high fluorescence quantum yield still represents a challenging goal since PDI dyes have a strong tendency to form aggregates in aqueous solution even at very low concentrations. Water solubility and high fluorescence quan…
Fine-tuning DNA/albumin polyelectrolyte interactions to produce the efficient transfection agent cBSA-147.
We present the preparation and isolation of different chemically modified BSA species with varying numbers of primary amino groups at the surface. Highly cationic albumin proteins with increased numbers of amino groups were achieved and complex formation with plasmid DNA was carefully investigated. We compare the transfection results, polyelectrolyte complexes morphologies with their impact on complex stabilities, cytotoxicities and DNA accessibility. This knowledge-driven approach led to the identification of the efficient non-viral DNA delivery agent cBSA-147, which showed high transfection efficacies and stability.
Photoactivatable caged cyclic RGD peptide for triggering integrin binding and cell adhesion to surfaces.
We report the synthesis and properties of a photoactivatable caged RGD peptide and its application for phototriggering integrin- and cell-binding to surfaces. We analysed in detail 1) the differences in the integrin-binding affinity of the caged and uncaged forms by quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) studies, 2) the efficiency and yield of the photolytic uncaging reaction, 3) the biocompatibility of the photolysis by-products and irradiation conditions, 4) the possibility of site, temporal and density control of integrin-binding and therefore human cell attachment, and 5) the possibility of in situ generation of cell patterns and cell gradients by controlling the UV exposure. These studies p…