The facile and additive-free synthesis of a cell-friendly iron(iii)-glutathione complex

Polyphenol-Based Nanoscale Iron Exchangers for Regulating Anticancer Chemotherapy by Modulating the Activity of Intracellular Glutathione

The elevated glutathione (GSH) level in cancer cells contributes to the poor response to chemotherapy and necessitates the use of maximum tolerated drug doses, leading to myriad side effects. We have developed a biocompatible and fluorescently trackable nanosystem, iron(III)-bound nanocarbonaceous polyphenol (FeNCP), to modulate the available GSH pool in cancer cells for synergistic effects in treatments with a cytotoxic anticancer drug, doxorubicin (Dox). This nanosystem was designed using a nanoscale carbon system as a platform to generate a GSH-responsive gallic acid-iron complex. The effective interaction between FeNCP and GSH was probed in PBS (pH 7.4) and cell lysates using UV-Vis, fluorescence spectrophotometry, ¹H NMR, flow cytometry, and confocal and transmission electron microscopic studies. The concurrent treatment of cancer cells with subcytotoxic FeNCP and Dox leads to dose reduction indices of Dox of ∼6.1 for HepG2 (hepatocellular carcinoma) and 6.7 for B16F0 (melanoma) to kill ∼50% of the cell population, which is suggestive of the requirement of a multifold lower dose of Dox. Notably, this combination was relatively more cytotoxic toward cancer cell lines than the model normal cell line, Vero. The increased reactive oxygen species levels in combinatorial treatment reveal that FeNCP serves as a potential candidate for modulating glutathione activity and potentiating cytotoxic effects of Dox. The intelligent multifold design of this nanosystem might enable the applicability in optical detection of GSH and imaging-assisted surgery in the future, in addition to the potential to advance treatment regimens in anticancer chemotherapy.

Computational analyses of Fe-Chelation by thiofavipiravir

Existence of iron (Fe) is important for cells of living systems; however, its level of magnitude for those patients infected by novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is still a challenging issue. Therefore, such mechanism of function was investigated in this work by assistance of thiofavipiravir (TFav) compounds generated by the well-known favipiravir (Fav) drug used for medication of COVID-19 patents. To this aim, sulfur-substitutions of oxygen atoms of Fav were done and the obtained parent structures were prepared for participating in Fe-chelation function. The results indicated that the modes were suitable for running such Fe-chelation processes, in which favorability and strength the models were ranged in this order: 1O2S-Fe > 1S2S-Fe > 1O2O-Fe > 1S2O-Fe. As a consequence, such idea of sulfur-substitution of Fav drug for more appropriate favorability of participating in Fe-chelation process was sensed by results of this work proposing 1O2S compound as the most favorable one for doing the function. Hence, information about capability of TFav compounds for participating in Fe-chelation processes were provided in this work regarding the challenging issue of Fe-chelation in medication of COVID-19 patients. All results of this work were obtained by performing computations using the density functional theory (DFT) approach

Unveiling the interplay between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic mechanisms in copper–iron nanoparticles working under chemically relevant tumour conditions

This work studies in depth the interplay between glutathione (GSH) and a copper–iron oxide nanocatalyst. We describe the activation and interplay of homogeneous and heterogeneous processes that induce a cascade of reactions against cancer cells.