INTRODUCTION We studied monocyte transendothelial migration and subsequent polarization into M1/M2 macrophages in response to C-reactive protein (CRP) with two disease-related ligands: (1) phosphocholine (PC) and (2) multilamellar liposomes containing both unoxidized and oxidized forms of the lipid, phosphatidylcholine. These ligands differ in biological origin: PC is present on bacterial cell ...

Cardiac anaphylaxis is a severe, life-threatening manifestation of acute hypersensitivity reactions to allergens and drugs. Earlier studies highlighted an amplifying effect of locally applied C5a on the process; however, the role of systemic complement (C) activation with C5a liberation in blood has not been explored to date. In the present study, we used the porcine liposome-induced cardiopulm...

Lyophilized unilamellar liposomes (ULV), the dosage form of choice for shelf-life, revert upon reconstitution to the larger multilamellar liposomes (MLV), which is detrimental to the many carrier-mediated therapies that require small particles. High doses of sugars such as trehalose, sucrose and others, included in the original formulations for cryoprotection, were shown to prevent the conversi...

The thermodynamic reasons why membrane proteins form stable complexes inside the hydrophobic lipid bilayer remain poorly understood. This is largely because of a lack of membrane-protein systems amenable for equilibrium studies and a limited number of methods for measuring these reactions. Recently, we reported the equilibrium dimerization of the CLC-ec1 Cl-/H+ transporter in lipid bilayers (Ch...

Current therapies for renal cell carcinoma have been limited by the unresponsiveness of metastatic disease to conventional treatments. Although the use of biological response modifiers as adjuvant therapy has generally not been successful against disseminated disease, in situ activation of macrophages to a tumoricidal state by liposome-encapsulated immunomodulators has been shown to eradicate m...

To investigate the molecular organization and phase behavior of physiologic lipid mixtures that contain either newly synthesized pseudoceramide or type III synthetic ceramide, various analytical techniques were used. The phase transition temperatures detected in differential scanning calorimetry analysis were 51.19 and 50.52 for the pseudoceramide-containing physiologic lipid mixture and synthe...

The lipophilic anthracycline antibiotic annamycin (Ann) was entrapped in liposomes of different size [median diameter: 1.64 microns, multilamellar liposomal Ann (L-Ann); 0.030 micron, small unilamellar Ann (S-Ann)] with > 90% entrapment efficiency and tested in vitro against four pairs of sensitive and multidrug-resistant (MDR) tumor cell lines and in vivo by the i.v. route in five tumor models...

the nasal cavity possesses many advantages as a site for drug delivery, such as, ease of administration, applicability for long term treatments and a large surface area for absorption. one important limiting factor for nasal drug delivery is the limited time available for absorption within the nasal cavity due to mucociliary clearance. several drug delivery systems including different kinds of ...