This study evaluated the anti-Toxoplasma gondii potential of gold, silver, and platinum nanoparticles (NPs). Inorganic NPs (0.01-1,000 µg/mL) were screened for antiparasitic activity. The NPs caused >90% inhibition of T. gondii growth with EC50 values of ≤7, ≤1, and ≤100 µg/mL for gold, silver, and platinum NPs, respectively. The NPs showed no host cell cytotoxicity at the effective anti-T. gon...

The treatment of glioblastoma (GBM) is a challenge for the biomedical research since cures remain elusive. Its current therapy, consisted on surgery, radiotherapy, and concomitant chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ), is often uneffective. Here, we proposed the use of zoledronic acid (ZOL) as a potential agent for the treatment of GBM. Our group previously developed self-assembling nanoparticle...

OBJECTIVE Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) are increasingly used in sunscreens, bio- sensors, food additives, pigments, manufacture of rubber products, and electronic materi- als. There are several studies about the effects of NPs on dermal fibroblast or keratino- cytes, but very little attention has been directed towards adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs). A previous study has rev...

Physical penetration of lipid bilayer membranes presents an alternative pathway for cellular delivery of nanoparticles (NPs) besides endocytosis. NPs delivered through this pathway could reach the cytoplasm, thereby opening the possibility of organelle-specific targeting. Herein we perform dissipative particle dynamics simulations to elucidate the transmembrane penetration mechanisms of multipl...

Neuropeptide S (NPS) is an endogenous brain peptide produced by neurons located in the lower brainstem, and functional studies suggest that NPS has arousing effects. Because its receptors are found in reward-associated regions throughout the brain, we evaluated whether intraventricular NPS injections elicit reward-related effects in rats. Rats increased lever presses that led to intraventricula...

With Cold Dark Matter (CDM) power spectrum normalized by COBE results, its amplitude at smaller scales can be parametrized by Γ ∼ Ω0h. The expected variations of Hubble flows in two samples, the sample of 36 clusters in the Mark III catalogue, and the sample of 20 Type Ia supernovae (SNe), are calculated for the CDM power spectrum with varying Γ. The comparison between the expectations and the ...

Atmospheric microplasma electrochemistry was utilized to synthesize Au nanoparticles (NPs). The synthesized Au NPs were investigated as a function of reduction current, solution temperature, and stirring (or not) by using ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) absorbance and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was illustrated that high current promoted the growth of Au NPs with small size, and mor...

Nanoparticles (NPs) have been suggested as efficient matrixes for small molecule profiling and imaging by laser-desorption ionization mass spectrometry (LDI-MS), but so far there has been no systematic study comparing different NPs in the analysis of various classes of small molecules. Here, we present a large scale screening of 13 NPs for the analysis of two dozen small metabolite molecules. M...

We report a facile halide ion (Cl(-) or Br(-)) mediated synthesis of Fe nanoparticles (NPs) by thermal decomposition of Fe(CO)5. The NP structure is controlled to be either amorphous (in the absence of halide ions) or single crystalline bcc (in the presence of halide ions). Through systematic investigation on the synthetic conditions, we have confirmed that the formation of bcc-Fe NPs is facili...

The aim of this study was to formulate buccal mucoadhesive nanoparticles (NPs) using the natural mucoadhesive polymers. The natural mucoadhesive polymers chitosan (CS) and dextran sulfate sodium salt (DS) were used to prepare mucoadhesive NPs using the ionic gelation method. As the molecular weight of DS decreased, the amount of mucin and the number of buccal cells adsorbed on DS increased. The...