We investigated efficacy of nitric oxide (NO) against Leishmania donovani. NO is a mediator of host response to infection, with direct parasiticidal activity in addition to its role in signalling to evoke innate macrophage responses. However, it is short-lived and volatile, and is therefore difficult to introduce into infected cells and maintain inracellular concentrations for meaningful period...

Superaggregation of amphotericin B (AmB) was previously shown to occur upon heating of solutions at 70 degrees C. In the present study, we demonstrate that heat pretreatment of Fungizone (deoxycholate salt of AmB [AmB-DOC]) solutions induces a drastic decrease in the in vitro toxicity of this antibiotic. Heated AmB-DOC colloidal solutions, which mainly contained superaggregated and monomeric fo...

IMCD3 cells were grown in DME/F12 (Invitrogen) supplemented with 10% FBS at 37°C and 5% CO2. Mouse tracheal epithelial cell (MTEC) cultures were established as previously described (1, 2). Mice were sacrificed at 2–4 months of age, and trachea were excised, opened longitudinally to expose the lumen, and placed in 1.5 mg/ml pronase E in F12-Kaighn’s media (Invitrogen) at 4°C overnight. Tracheal ...

The oral administration of amphotericin B (AmB) has a major drawback of poor bioavailability. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of glyceryl monoolein (GMO) cubosomes as lipid nanocarriers to improve the oral efficacy of AmB. Antifungal efficacy was determined in vivo in rats after oral administration, to investigate its therapeutic use. The human colon adenocarcinoma cell l...

The ability of the versatile dioctadecyldimethylammonium bromide (DODAB), a bilayer-forming synthetic lipid previously shown to solubilize Amphotericin B (AMB), inspired this evaluation of in vivo activity of the DODAB/AMB formulation (DOD/AMB) against systemic candidiasis in a mouse model from survival and tissue burden experiments. AMB was simply added to a DODAB powder dispersion in water pr...

Extensive fusion occurs upon cocultivation of murine fibroblasts producing ecotropic murine leukemia viruses (MuLVs) with a large variety of murine cell lines in the presence of the polyene antibiotic amphotericin B, the active component of the antifungal agent Fungizone. The resulting polykaryocytes contain nuclei from both infected and uninfected cells, as evidenced by autoradiographic labeli...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Current therapy for leishmaniasis is limited and unsatisfactory. Amphotericin B, a second-line treatment is gradually replacing antimonials, the first-line treatment and is used as the preferred treatments in some regions. Though, presently it is the only drug with highest cure rate, its use is severely restricted by its acute toxicity. In the present study novel lipid-a...

The crustacean stomatogastric ganglion, consisting of about 30 identifiable neurones, produces several distinct patterned outputs governing rhythmic movements of the stomach. This system has become a model for addressing cellular properties and synaptic interactions underlying pattern generation in neural networks (see Selverston and Moulins, 1987). Studies of the system have been limited by th...