We have examined the effect of stearylamine (SA) in liposomes on the viability of Plasmodium falciparum in culture by studying the inhibition of incorporation of [(3)H]-hypoxanthine in the nucleic acid of parasites. Stearylamine in liposomes significantly inhibits the growth of the parasites depending on the phospholipids composition. The maximum inhibition was observed when SA was delivered th...

During the chemotherapy of cancer, drug resistance is the first issue that chemotherapeutic drugs cannot be effectively used for the treatment of cancers repeatedly for a long term, and the main reason for this is that tumor cell detoxification is mediated by GSH (glutathione) catalyzed by GST (glutathione-S-transferase). In this study, a GST inhibitor, ethacrynic acid (ECA), was designed to be...

Today, cell therapy is known as an important tool in the treatment of chronic diseases where cells lose their normal function. Immunoisolation systems using microencapsulation or PEGylation have been developed to evade the problem of rejection by the immune system. The aim of the present study was to investigate a combination of microencapsulation and PEGylation methods in coating mouse embryon...

Ligand attachment to polyethylene glycol (PEG) grafted, long circulating liposomes at the polymer terminus is of interest for targeting but the effect of positively charged groups is unknown. Amino-polyethylene glycol-phosphatidylethanolamine (AminoPEG-PE), prepared in four steps from alpha-amino-omega-hydroxy-PEG, was tested for influence on liposome interactions in vivo: blood circulation and...

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) conjugation technology has been successfully applied to improve the performance of protein drugs. In this study, L-asparaginase was N-terminal site-specifically modified by alkylating PEG with monomethoxy polyethylene glycol-propionaldehyde (mPEG-ALD20000). The optimum reaction parameters were determined as pH 5.0, a molar ratio of mPEG-ALD2000 to L-asparaginase of 10:...

A new class of methoxy-poly(ethylene glycol) (mPEG) derivatives having a cleavable group of oligo-lactic acid (OLA) was synthesized by ring opening polymerization of L-lactide using a terminal hydroxyl end of mPEG as an initiator. The synthesized mPEG derivatives had 0.8 and 3.6 lactic acid units based on the MALDI-TOF data. A terminal end group of mPEG-OLA was further activated with p-nitrophe...

BACKGROUND In this study, a pH and temperature dual-sensitive liposome gel based on a novel cleavable hydrazone-based pH-sensitive methoxy polyethylene glycol 2000-hydrazone-cholesteryl hemisuccinate (mPEG-Hz-CHEMS) polymer was used for vaginal administration. METHODS The pH-sensitive, cleavable mPEG-Hz-CHEMS was designed as a modified pH-sensitive liposome that would selectively degrade unde...

Sodium-coupled neutral amino acid transporter 2 (SNAT2) belongs to solute carrier 38 (SLC38) family of transporters, which is ubiquitously expressed in mammalian tissues and mediates transport of small, neutral amino acids, exemplified by alanine(Ala, A). Yet structural data on SNAT2, including the relevance of intrinsic cysteine residues on structure and function, is scarce, in spite of its es...

BACKGROUND It has been widely reported that curcumin (CUR) exhibits anticancer activity and triggers the apoptosis of human A549 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells. However, its application is limited owing to its poor solubility and bioavailability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop a new CUR formulation with higher water solubility and better biocompatibility for clinical ap...