Search results for "drug delivery."

"Click" on PLGA-PEG and hyaluronic acid: gaining access to anti-leishmanial pentamidine bioconjugates

2018

Pentamidine (Pent), an antiparasitic drug used for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis, has been modified with terminal azide groups and conjugated to two different polymer backbones (PLGA-PEG [PP] copolymer and hyaluronic acid [HA]) armed with alkyne end-groups. The conjugation has been performed by Copper Catalyzed Azido Alkyne Cycloaddition (CuAAC) using CuSO4/sodium ascorbate as metal source. The novel PP-Pent and HA-Pent bioconjugates are proposed, respectively, as non-targeted and targeted drug delivery systems against Leishmania infections. Moreover, Pent has been encapsulated into PP nanoparticles by the oil-in-water emulsion method, with the aim to compare the biological activi…

Innovative polymer - and lipid - based nanotechnologies for drug and nucleic acid delivery

2009

Dispersion polymerization of vinyl monomers in supercritical carbon dioxide in the presence of drug molecules: A one-pot route for the preparation of…

2008

Radiation-tailored xyloglucan-doxorubicin nanoparticles for cancer therapy

2022

Polysaccharides are long chains of monosaccharides linked by glycosidic bonds. They are widely utilized in biomedical applications, for tissue engineering and wound management, and as excipients of pharmaceutical formulations. In cancer therapy, the development of nanoscale drug delivery systems aims at addressing issues related to the low efficacy of chemotherapeutics and protein drugs due to poor solubility and stability, and to off-target effects that severely affect patients’ body conditions. Biocompatibility, availability of functional groups, amenability of chemical derivatisation and multifunctional conjugation with drugs and targeting ligands make polysaccharide nanoparticles intere…

In vitro evaluation of glycol chitosan based formulations as oral delivery systems for efflux pump inhibition.

2017

Recently, we have reported that glycol chitosan (GCS) was able to reverse the P- glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux pump. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the potential of two GCS-based dosage forms (aqueous solution or nanoparticle suspension) for oral administration of the P-gp substrate Rho-123. A further aim of the present study was to assess the effect of the glycol chitosan-4-thiobutylamidine thiomer (GCS-TBA) on P-gp activity considering that the corresponding thiomer of chitosan series is a well-known P-gp inhibitor. Pre-treatment of Caco-2 cell monolayer with a GCS solution or GCS-based nanoparticles increased the absorptive transport of Rho-123 across the monolayer of 1.…

Preservation of the soft protein corona in distinct flow allows identification of weakly bound proteins.

2018

Abstract Nanocarriers that are used for targeted drug delivery come in contact with biological liquids and subsequently proteins will adsorb to the nanocarriers’ surface to form the so called ‘protein corona’. The protein corona defines the biological identity and determines the biological response towards the nanocarriers in the body. To make nanomedicine safe and reliable it is required to get a better insight into this protein corona and, therefore, the adsorbed proteins have to be characterized. Currently, centrifugation is the common method to isolate the protein corona for further investigations. However, with this method it is only possible to investigate the strongly bound proteins,…

Carbohydrate-Based Nanocarriers Exhibiting Specific Cell Targeting with Minimum Influence from the Protein Corona.

2015

Whenever nanoparticles encounter biological fluids like blood, proteins adsorb on their surface and form a so-called protein corona. Although its importance is widely accepted, information on the influence of surface functionalization of nanocarriers on the protein corona is still sparse, especially concerning how the functionalization of PEGylated nanocarriers with targeting agents will affect protein corona formation and how the protein corona may in turn influence the targeting effect. Herein, hydroxyethyl starch nanocarriers (HES-NCs) were prepared, PEGylated, and modified on the outer PEG layer with mannose to target dendritic cells (DCs). Their interaction with human plasma was then s…

Reconfigurable DNA Origami Nanocapsule for pH-Controlled Encapsulation and Display of Cargo

2019

DNA nanotechnology provides a toolbox for creating custom and precise nanostructures with nanometer-level accuracy. These nano-objects are often static by nature and serve as versatile templates for assembling various molecular components in a user-defined way. In addition to the static structures, the intrinsic programmability of DNA nanostructures allows the design of dynamic devices that can perform predefined tasks when triggered with external stimuli, such as drug delivery vehicles whose cargo display or release can be triggered with a specified physical or chemical cue in the biological environment. Here, we present a DNA origami nanocapsule that can be loaded with cargo and reversibl…

Ex-Vivo model for the evaluation of drugs and micellar systems permeation across cornea

Overview and Update on Extracellular Vesicles: Considerations on Exosomes and their Application in Modern Medicine

2022

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the knowledge of cell-secreted extracellular vesicle functions. They are membrane enclosed and loaded with proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and other biomolecules. After being released into the extracellular environment, some of these vesicles are delivered to recipient cells; consequently, the target cell may undergo physiological or pathological changes. Thus, extracellular vesicles as biological nano-carriers, have a pivotal role in facilitating long-distance intercellular communication. Understanding the mechanisms that mediate this communication process is important not only for basic science but also in medicine. Indeed, extracellular …