New donor–acceptor polymers containing disilanobithiophene (DSBT) as the donor and pyridine or pyrazine as the acceptor with or without a thiophene spacer were prepared. The polymers showed UV-vis absorption maxima at lmax 1⁄4 488–526 nm, which were red-shifted relative to those of model monomers dithienylpyridine and dithienylpyrazine (lmax 1⁄4 352–375 nm), indicating the efficient conjugation...

The ability of a polymer therapeutic to access the appropriate subcellular location is crucial to its efficacy and is defined to a large part by the many and complex cellular biological and biochemical barriers such that a construct must traverse. It is shown here that model dextrin conjugates are able to pass through a cartilaginous extracellular matrix into chondrocytes, with little perturbat...

CRLX101 (formerly IT-101) is a novel cyclodextrin-based polymer that selfassembles into nanoparticles. CRLX101 was designed to deliver sustained levels of the cytotoxic agent camptothecin (CPT) to tumour cells while minimizing delivery to normal tissue. Covalent conjugation of hydrophobic CPT to the cyclodextrin polymer increases its water solubility by three orders of magnitude and prevents in...

Variations in the band structures of the two-dimensional C60-polymers are studied, when π-conjugation conditions are changed. We investigate the rectangular and triangular polymers, in order to discuss metal-insulator transitions, using a semiempirical model with the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger type electronphonon interactions. We find that electronic structures change among directgap insulators and t...

Recently, cell-penetrating peptides have been proposed to translocate antibodies, proteins, and other molecules in targeted drug delivery. The proposed study presents the synthesis and characterization of a peptide-based chitosan nanoparticle for small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery, in-vitro. Specifically, the synthesis included polyethylene glycol (PEG), a hydrophilic polymer, and trans-act...

The application of pectin as an emulsifier in oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion does not guarantee its stability for a long time. In fact, pectin is not an effective emulsifier because of its hydrophilic structure. On the other hand, pea protein isolate (PPI) does not also have a proper emulsifying activity because of its hydrophobic structure. The main objective of this study was to investigate the ...

Objective(s): Polyethylenimine (PEI) is one of the most widely used polymers in gene delivery. The aim of this study was to modify PEI by replacing some of its primary amines with Brevinin 2R (BR-2R) peptide in order to increase the efficiency of gene delivery.Materials and Methods: Polyethylenimine was modified by BR-2R peptide by two d...

The design of multifunctional polymer-based vectors, forming pDNA vaccines, offers great potential in cancer immune therapy. The transfection of dendritic immune cells (DCs) with tumour antigen-encoding pDNA leads to an activation of the immune system to combat tumour cells. In this work, we investigated the chemical attachment of DEC205 antibodies (aDEC205) as DC-targeting structures to polypl...

The activation of cellular signaling cascades, critical for regulating cell function and fate, often involves changes in the organization of receptors in the cell membrane. Using synthetic multivalent ligands to control the nanoscale organization of cellular receptors into clusters is an attractive approach to elicit desired downstream cellular responses, since multivalent ligands can be signif...