Anticancer Drug Delivery

Zinc ferrites are successfully nano particles were prepared by the hydrothermal method. In this method PEG used as a capping agent. The structure and morphology of ensuring product was characterized by powder X-ray Diffraction, Fourier transform infrared and UV-visible spectroscopy. The XRD result confirms the formation of spinel cubic structure with Fd3M space group matches with JCPDS No.82-1042. The average particle size calculated by Debye Scherer formula is 3.54 nm and the X-ray density of the powder is 1.6466 g/cc3. In this study, quenching study, anti-bacterial and in vitro anticancer properties of zinc ferrite nano particles were evaluated. Antibacterial activity of zinc ferrite was studied against E.coli pathogenic bacteria and In vitro anticancer activity was screened by MTT assay against MCF cell line. The molecular interaction study had been performed using Bovine Serum Albumin. The result shows that the zinc ferrite nano particles have been used for the bio-applications like antimicrobial activity, anticancer properties, and bio molecule interaction. It reveals that the zinc ferrite nano particles have biological applications.

Urtica dioica or stinging nettle is traditionally used as an herbal medicine in Western Asia. The current study represents the investigation of antimicrobial activity of U. dioica from nine crude extracts that were prepared using different organic solvents, obtained from two extraction methods: the Soxhlet extractor (Method I), which included the use of four solvents with ethyl acetate and hexane, or the sequential partitions (Method II) with a five solvent system (butanol). The antibacterial and antifungal activities of crude extracts were tested against 28 bacteria, three yeast strains and seven fungal isolates by the disc diffusion and broth dilution methods. Amoxicillin was used as positive control for bacteria strains, vancomycin for Streptococcus sp., miconazole nitrate (30µg/mL) as positive control for fungi and yeast, and pure methanol (v/v) as negative control. The disc diffusion assay was used to determine the sensitivity of the samples, whilst the broth dilution method was used for the determination of the minimal inhibition concentration (MIC). The ethyl acetate and hexane extract from extraction method I (EA I and HE I) exhibited highest inhibition against some pathogenic bacteria such as Bacillus cereus, MRSA and Vibrio parahaemolyticus. A selection of extracts that showed some activity was further tested for the MIC and minimal bactericidal concentrations (MBC). MIC values of Bacillus subtilis and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) using butanol extract of extraction method II (BE II) were 8.33 and 16.33mg/mL, respectively; while the MIC value using ethyl acetate extract of extraction method II (EAE II) for Vibrio parahaemolyticus was 0.13mg/mL. Our study showed that 47.06% of extracts inhibited Gram-negative (8 out of 17), and 63.63% of extracts also inhibited Gram-positive bacteria (7 out of 11); besides, statistically the frequency of antimicrobial activity was 13.45% (35 out of 342) which in this among 21.71% belongs to antimicrobial activity extracts from extraction method I (33 out of 152 of crude extracts) and 6.82% from extraction method II (13 out of 190 of crude extracts). However, crude extracts from method I exhibited better antimicrobial activity against the Gram-positive bacteria than the Gram-negative bacteria. The positive results on medicinal plants screening for antibacterial activity constitutes primary information for further phytochemical and pharmacological studies. Therefore, the extracts could be suitable as antimicrobial agents in pharmaceutical and food industry. Rev. Biol. Trop. 60 (4): 1567-1576. Epub 2012 December 01.

Stem/progenitor cell-based therapeutic approach in clinical practice has been an elusive dream in medical sciences, and improvement of stem cell homing is one of major challenges in cell therapy programs. Stem/progenitor cells have a homing response to injured tissues/organs, mediated by interactions of chemokine receptors expressed on the cells and chemokines secreted by the injured tissue. For improvement of directed homing of the cells, many techniques have been developed either to engineer stem/progenitor cells with higher amount of chemokine receptors (stem cell-based strategies) or to modulate the target tissues to release higher level of the corresponding chemokines (target tissue-based strategies). This review discusses both of these strategies involved in the improvement of stem cell homing focusing on mesenchymal stem cells as most frequent studied model in cellular therapies.

Covalent conjugation of anticancer drugs to targeting carriers (e.g., antibodies or small molecules) capable of selectively binding to tumor-specific antigens, is emerging as a successful strategy to overcome the drawbacks of traditional chemotherapy. Due to its overexpression on blood vessels of human tumors, αvβ3 integrin is one of the most studied receptors of tumor-targeted therapeutics: several peptides and peptidomimetics, bearing the RGD (Arg-Gly-Asp) recognition sequence, have been developed as integrin ligands and linked to different anticancer drugs. The resulting integrin- targeted small molecule-drug conjugates (SMDCs) are able to release the cytotoxic agents upon cleavage of a linker under specific conditions (i.e., hydrolysis, enzymatic action or reduction). Despite the significant efforts made in this field, αvβ3 integrin-targeted SMDCs are still far from the clinic. In this review, we survey this approach with a special focus on the different linkers employed and the reported biological activities in vitro and in vivo.