Efficient Detection of Phthalate Esters in Human Saliva via Fluorescence Spectroscopy

The detection of phthalates in human biologic fluids remains an important research objective because it provides an important measure of an individual’s exposure to this class of compounds, which have known deleterious health effects. Moreover, the ability to accomplish such detection in fluids that are easy to collect, such as saliva and urine, provides additional practical advantages. Reported herein is the application of cyclodextrin-promoted fluorescence energy transfer and fluorescence modulation to accomplish precisely such detection: the development of sensitive and selective florescence-based detection methods for phthalates in saliva, an easily collectable human biologic fluid. Such saliva-based detection methods occur with high levels of selectivity (100% differentiation) and sensitivity (limits of detection as low as 0.089?µM), and provide significant potential in the development of practical phthalate detection devices.     

Surface plasmon modes and the Casimir energy

We show the influence of surface plasmons on the Casimir effect between two plane parallel metallic mirrors at arbitrary distances. Using the plasma model to describe the optical response of the metal, we express the Casimir energy as a sum of contributions associated with evanescent surface plasmon modes and propagative cavity modes. In contrast to naive expectations, the plasmonic mode contribution is essential at all distances in order to ensure the correct result for the Casimir energy. One of the two plasmonic modes gives rise to a repulsive contribution, balancing out the attractive contributions from propagating cavity modes, while both contributions taken separately are much larger than the actual value of the Casimir energy. This also suggests possibilities to tailor the sign of the Casimir force via surface plasmons.     

A calorimetric evaluation of the interaction of amphiphilic prodrugs of idebenone with a biomembrane model

Lipoamino acids (LAA) are useful promoieties to modify physicochemical properties of drugs, namely lipophilicity and amphiphilicity. The resulting membrane-like character of drug-LAA conjugates can increase the absorption profile of drugs through cell membranes and biological barriers. To show the role of amphiphilicity with respect to lipophilicity in the interaction of drugs with biomembranes, in the present study we evaluated the mode of such an interaction of lipophilic conjugates of LAA with the antioxidant drug idebenone (IDE). DSC analysis and transfer kinetic studies were carried out using dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) multilamellar liposomes (MLVs) as a model. For comparison, two esters of IDE with alkanoic acids were synthesized and included in the analysis. The experimental results indicate that based on their different structure, IDE-LAA conjugates interacted at different levels with respect to pure IDE with DMPC bilayers. In particular, a progressive penetration inside the vesicles was observed upon incubation of IDE-LAA compounds with empty liposomes. The enhanced amphiphilicity of the drug due to the LAA moieties caused more complex interactions with DMPC bilayers, compared to those registered with the native drug or IDE alkanoate esters.