Purification of plasmid DNA vectors by aqueous two-phase extraction and hydrophobic interaction chromatography

The current study explores the possibility of using a polyethyleneglycol(PEG)-ammonium sulphate aqueous two-phase system (ATPS) as an early step in a process for the purification of a model 6.1 kbp plasmid DNA (pDNA) vector. Neutralised alkaline lysates were fed directly to ATPS. Conditions were selected to direct pDNA towards the salt-rich bottom phase, so that this stream could be subsequently processed by hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC). Screening of the best conditions for ATPS extraction was performed using three PEG molecular weights (300, 400 and 600) and varying the tie-line length, phase volume ratio and lysate load. For a 20% (w/w) lysate load, the best results were obtained with PEG 600 using the shortest tie-line (38.16%, w/w). By further manipulating the system composition along this tie-line in order to obtain a top/bottom phase volume ratio of 9.3 (35%, w/w PEG 600, 6%, w/w NH4)2 SO4), it was possible to recover 100% of pDNA in the bottom phase with a three-fold increase in concentration. Further increase in the lysate load up to 40% (w/w) with this system resulted in a eight-fold increase in pDNA concentration, but with a yield loss of 15%. The ATPS extraction was integrated with HIC and the overall process compared with a previously defined process that uses sequential precipitations with iso-propanol and ammonium sulphate prior to HIC. Although the final yield is lower in the ATPS-based process the purity grade of the final pDNA product is higher. This shows that it is possible to substitute the time-consuming two-step precipitation procedure by a simple ATPS extraction.     

Interactions of dicarboxylic porphyrins with membranes in relation to their ionization state

The interactions of dicarboxylic porphyrins with membrane systems are discussed with particular emphasis on the effect of the charge of the porphyrin and the nature of the side-chains. The incorporation of hematoporphyrin or related dicarboxylic porphyrins within small unilamellar vesicles as membrane models is favored by a decrease of the pH in the range of physiological pH values. This effect might play an important role in the retention of porphyrins by tumors, which are more acidic than normal tissues. Kinetics studies also show that the partition of the porphyrin between the lipidic bilayer and the aqueous phase is governed by its release rate rather than by its incorporation rate.     

红紫素-18酰亚胺衍生物的合成

以脱镁叶绿酸甲酯为原料, 通过对其3-位乙烯基的氧化, 得到3-(2,2-二甲氧基乙基)-3-去乙烯基脱镁叶绿酸甲酯, 经过甲酸处理得到3-(2-氧代乙基)-3-去乙烯基脱镁叶绿酸甲酯, 选择适当的条件, 通过Grignard 反应合成了对应的3-(2-羟基烷基)-3-去乙烯基脱镁叶绿酸甲酯. 实验结果表明: 3-(2-氧代乙基)-3-去乙烯基脱美叶绿酸甲酯和Grignard试剂的反应, 只要反应条件控制得当, 13²-位的甲氧甲酰基不会脱去. 结合E环的改造, 将其转变成酸酐环进而转变成N-取代的酰亚胺环. 目标化合物的合成也可以将3-(2,2-二甲氧基乙基)-去乙烯基脱镁叶绿酸甲酯转变成N-取代的酰亚胺后, 再和Grignard试剂反应, 完成目标化合物的合成. 合成的一系列化合物具有长波长的紫外吸收. 化合物的结构变化对紫外吸收的影响作了相应的讨论. 合成的新化合物均由核磁共振、红外光谱、元素分析予以证实.     

Synthesis and Crystal Structure of 4-{[（1E）1- （2-Hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl）methylidene]amino}- 1,5-dimethyl-2-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-3-one

The title Schiff base compound,C19H19N3O3,a derivative of antipyrine,has been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis,IR,and single-crystal X-ray diffraction.The crystal belongs to the monoclinic system,space group C2/c,with α = 27.935(5),b = 7.553(1),c =16.692(3) (A),β = 105.810(3)°,Z= 8,V= 3388.7(10) (A)3,Dc = 1.323 g/cm3,Mr = 337.37,λ(MoKα) =0.71073 (A),μ = 0.091 mm-1,F(000) = 1424,R = 0.0630 and wR = 0.1273.A total of 3513 unique reflections were collected,of which 2112 with I ＞ 2σ(I) were observed.The molecular structure adopts a trans configuration about the C=N double bond.The pyrazoline and C(1)～C(6) pheny1 ring are approximately coplanar (mean deviation from the combined plane is 0.069(3) (A)),with the dihedral angle of 9.7(2)°.The preliminary biological tests show that the compound has high antibacterial activities.     

5-Aminolaevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy in multidrug resistant leukemia cells

To verify if photodynamic therapy (PDT) could overcome multidrug resistance (MDR) when it it applied to eradicate minimal residual disease in patients with leukemia, we investigated the fluorescence kinetics of 5-aminolaevulinic acid (ALA)-induced protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) and the effect of subsequent photodynamic therapy on MDR leukemia cells, which express P-glycoprotein (P-gp), as well as on their parent cells. Evaluation of PpIX accumulation by flow cytometry showed that PpIX accumulated at higher levels in mdr-1 gene-transduced MDR cells (NB4/MDR) and at lower levels in doxorubicin-induced MDR cells (NOMO-1/ADR) than in their parent cells. A P-gp inhibitor could not increase PpIX accumulation. Measurement of extracellular PpIX concentration by fluorescence spectrometry showed that P-gp did not mediate the fluorescence kinetics of ALA-induced PpIX production. Assessment of ferrochelatase activity using high-performance liquid chromatography indicated that PpIX accumulation in drug-induced MDR cells was probably regulated by this enzyme. Assessment of phototoxicity of PDT using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay showed that PDT was effective in NB4, NB4/MDR, NOMO-1 and NOMO-1/ADR cells, which accumulated high levels of PpIX, but not effective in K562 and K562/ADR cell lines, which accumulated relatively low levels of PpIX. These findings demonstrate that P-gp does not mediate the ALA-fluorescence kinetics, and multidrug resistant leukemia cells do not have cross-resistance to ALA-PDT.     

Detection and recognition of cancer cells in vivo

A fundamentally new recognition method of bio-objects (e.g., cancer cells as the most important case of them) that escape the immune system supervision control is suggested. It is proposed to use a unified complex consisting of several molecular groups (e.g., antibodies or their fragments) bound with each other. Binding targets are localized on the surface of this bio-object. The choice of the targets is determined by antigen profiling being expressed on the surface of these bio-objects. The recognition efficiency appears to be notably higher than in a situation when molecular groups do not form a unified complex and act separately.     

Infrared Responsive Choline Phosphate Lipids for Synergistic Cancer Therapy

Choline phosphate lipids have been designed and developed as new-generation zwitterionic nanocarriers with excellent biocompatibility and bioorthogonality to provide a more programmable performance for cancer therapy. However, there is a lack of spatiotemporal and reversible control for drug release at target tumor cells, which can lead to severe adverse effects to normal tissue and discounted treatment outcome. Here, light-inducible Lip-cRGDfk/ICG/Dox liposomes were developed for synergistic cancer therapy. ICG can effectively convert light energy into selective heating in a local environment upon laser irradiation, thus inducing thermal ablation of tumor cells, and further reversibly trigger the spatiotemporal release of anticancer drugs (Dox) at tumor cells due to the conformation transformation of CP lipids to synergistically kill tumor cells. That Lip-cRGDfk/ICG/Dox exhibited a significant improvement for breast cancer therapy in vitro and in vivo is also demonstrated, thus it can serve as an efficient platform to noninvasively and spatiotemporally control the activation of cytotoxicity at tumor cells for precision cancer therapy.     

Emerging Design Principle of Near-Infrared Upconversion Sensitizer Based on Mitochondria-Targeted Organic Dye for Enhanced Photodynamic Therapy

Upconversion luminescent (UCL) triggered photodynamic therapy (PDT) affords superior outcome for cancer treatment. However, conventional UCL materials which all work by a multiphoton absorption (MPA) process inevitably need extremely high power density far over the maximum permissible exposure (MPE) to laser. Here, a one-photon absorption molecular upconversion sensitizer Cy5.5-Br based on frequency upconversion luminescent (FUCL) is designed for PDT. The unusual super heavy atom effect (SHAE) in Cy5.5-Br strongly enhances its spin-orbit coupling (0.23 cm⁻¹), triplet quantum yield (11.1 %) and triplet state lifetime (18.8 μs) while the potential hot-band absorption of Cy5.5-Br is well maintained. Importantly, Cy5.5-Br can efficiently target the tumour site and kill cancer cells by destroying mitochondria under a biosafety MPE to 808 nm laser. The photostability and antitumor results are obviously superior to that of a Stokes process. This work provides a design criterion for FUCL dyes to realize effective PDT upon a biosafety optical density, possibly bringing more clinical benefits than conventional MPA materials.