Extracellular capsules constitute the outermost layer of many bacteria, are major virulence factors, and affect antimicrobial therapies. They have been used as epidemiological markers and recently became vaccination targets. Despite the efforts to biochemically serotype capsules in a few model pathogens, little is known of their taxonomic and environmental distribution. We developed, validated,...

Liquid-filled pectinate capsules have a large potential for the controlled and site-specific delivery of liquid drugs. Earlier studies have shown that pure pectinate capsules can store drugs only for a few minutes. Here, we show that the retention time can be extended to several hours by coating the capsules with the natural resin shellac. A bilberry extract containing anthocyanins with promisi...

The purpose of our study was to develop new delivery systems for drugs effective against breast cancer by using biodegradable and biocompatible capsules. Redox-active microcapsules based on thiolated polymethacrylic acid (PMA) were employed. The interaction of these PMASH capsules with breast cancer cells and the mechanism of their internalization was investigated. PMASH biocompatibility was ev...

Particle stiffness is emerging as an important parameter in determining the cell uptake dynamics of particles. Understanding the effects of capsule stiffness on their biological behavior is essential for the development of polymer capsules as therapeutic carriers. Herein, we report the preparation of polysaccharide capsules via atom transfer radical polymerization-mediated continuous assembly o...

In the present study, we used diffusion NMR to probe the structures and characteristics of the products obtained from the self-assembly of resorcin[4]arenes 1a and 1b and pyrogallol[4]arenes 2a and 2b in CDCl(3) solutions. It was found that all four molecules self-assemble into hexameric capsules. The hexameric capsules of pyrogallol[4]arenes 2a and 2b were found to be more stable than the caps...

Macrophages ingest the fungus Cryptococcus neoformans only in the presence of opsonins, and this provides a remarkably clean system for the detailed analysis of phagocytosis. This system is also unusual in that antibody-mediated phagocytosis involves ingestion through both Fc and complement receptors in the absence of complement. Mathematical modeling was used to analyze and explain the experim...

A microfluidic system was designed, fabricated and implemented to study the behavior of polyelectrolyte capsules flowing in microscale channels. The silicon component of the system contains microchannels that leads into constrictions, which were fabricated using lithography techniques. Polyelectrolyte microcapsules were also fabricated with well-known layer-by-layer assembly technique, on a sph...

Hydrogen-bond molecular capsules have attracted much interest in the last decade. In the present paper, we wish to describe new insights obtained from diffusion NMR when studying the self-assembly of resorcin[4]arenes (2), pyrogallol[4]arenes (3) and octahydroxypyridine[4]arenes (4) in solution. These diffusion NMR studies demonstrate that compounds 2 and 3 self-assemble spontaneously into hexa...