Ternary complex of plasmid DNA with NLS-Mu-Mu protein and cationic niosome for biocompatible and efficient gene delivery: a comparative study with protamine and lipofectamine

Synthetic peptides for the precise transportation of proteins of interests to selectable subcellular areas

Proteins, as gifts from nature, provide structure, sequence, and function templates for designing biomaterials. As first reported here, one group of proteins called reflectins and derived peptides were found to present distinct intracellular distribution preferences. Taking their conserved motifs and flexible linkers as Lego bricks, a series of reflectin-derivates were designed and expressed in cells. The selective intracellular localization property leaned on an RMs (canonical conserved reflectin motifs)-replication-determined manner, suggesting that these linkers and motifs were constructional fragments and ready-to-use building blocks for synthetic design and construction. A precise spatiotemporal application demo was constructed in the work by integrating RL_Nto2 (as one representative of a synthetic peptide derived from RfA1) into the Tet-on system to effectively transport cargo peptides into nuclei at selective time points. Further, the intracellular localization of RfA1 derivatives was spatiotemporally controllable with a CRY2/CIB1 system. At last, the functional homogeneities of either motifs or linkers were verified, which made them standardized building blocks for synthetic biology. In summary, the work provides a modularized, orthotropic, and well-characterized synthetic-peptide warehouse for precisely regulating the nucleocytoplasmic localization of proteins.

Nanoliposomal formulation of pistachio hull extract: preparation, characterization and anti-cancer evaluation through Bax/Bcl2 modulation

BACKGROUND

Pistachio is one of the main crops in Iran. Pistachio green hull, as a by-product of this fruit, is obtained in large quantities after the processing of pistachios. This novel work was designed to examine the possible anti-cancer impact of the pistachio hull extract in the liposomal form (PHEL) on HepG2 cells.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The thin-film hydration approach was used for preparing liposomes and the physicochemical features of the liposomes were subsequently characterized. Afterward, apoptosis and the expression of genes related to apoptosis were assessed using flow cytometry assay and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), respectively. According to the results, the size range of PHEL was between 198 and 201 nm with a negative surface charge of - 39.2 to - 42.9 mV. As revealed by the flow cytometry results, this liposomal extract exhibits good potential for the induction of apoptosis. Moreover, the qPCR results demonstrated the up-regulation of p53 and Bax expressions and the down-regulation of Bcl-2 expression with an associated Bax/Bcl-2 ratio up-regulation.

CONCLUSION

The flow cytometry and real-time PCR results indicated the potential of this liposomal extract as an anti-cancer drug candidate for the treatment of liver cancer in the future, and the mitochondrial pathway involving the up-regulation of the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio can mediate its impact.

Cooperating minimalist nanovaccine with PD-1 blockade for effective and feasible cancer immunotherapy

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Facile antigen/adjuvant co-loaded nanovaccine made by convenient green preparation.

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The immunological activity of the antigen and adjuvant was maximally preserved.

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The minimalist nanovaccine had excellent stability and antitumor immune activation.

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Nanovaccine combined with PD-1 antibody synergistically enhanced therapy outcome.

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Good practicability for expanding clinical translation and personalized therapy.

Introduction

Tumor vaccine has been a research boom for cancer immunotherapy, while its therapeutic outcome is severely depressed by the vulnerable in vivo delivery efficiency. Moreover, tumor immune escape is also another intractable issue, which has badly whittled down the therapeutic efficiency.

Objectives

Our study aims to solve the above dilemmas by cooperating minimalist nanovaccine with PD-1 blockade for effective and feasible cancer immunotherapy.

Methods

The minimalist antigen and adjuvant co-delivery nanovaccine was developed by employing natural polycationic protamine (PRT) to carry the electronegative ovalbumin (OVA) antigen and unmethylated Cytosine-phosphorothioate-Guanine (CpG) adjuvant via convenient chemical bench-free “green” preparation without chemical-synthesis and no organic solvent was required, which could preserve the immunological activities of the antigens and adjuvants. On that basis, PD-1 antibody (aPD-1) was utilized to block the tumor immune escape and cooperate with the nanovaccine by maintaining the tumoricidal-activity of the vaccine-induced T cells.

Results

Benefited from the polycationic PRT, the facile PRT/CpG/OVA nanovaccine displayed satisfactory delivery performance, involving enhanced cellular uptake in dendritic cells (DCs), realizable endosomal escape and promoted stimulation for DCs’ maturation. These features would be helpful for the antitumor immunotherapeutic efficiency of the nanovaccine. Furthermore, the cooperation of the nanovaccine with aPD-1 synergistically improved the immunotherapy outcome, profiting by the cooperation of the “T cell induction” competency of the nanovaccine and the “T cell maintenance” function of the aPD-1.

Conclusion

This study will provide new concepts for the design and construction of facile nanovaccines, and contribute valuable scientific basis for cancer immunotherapy.

Lipid-Based Nanovesicular Drug Delivery Systems

In designing a new drug, considering the preferred route of administration, various requirements must be fulfilled. Active molecules pharmacokinetics should be reliable with a valuable drug profile as well as well-tolerated. Over the past 20 years, nanotechnologies have provided alternative and complementary solutions to those of an exclusively pharmaceutical chemical nature since scientists and clinicians invested in the optimization of materials and methods capable of regulating effective drug delivery at the nanometer scale. Among the many drug delivery carriers, lipid nano vesicular ones successfully support clinical candidates approaching such problems as insolubility, biodegradation, and difficulty in overcoming the skin and biological barriers such as the blood-brain one. In this review, the authors discussed the structure, the biochemical composition, and the drug delivery applications of lipid nanovesicular carriers, namely, niosomes, proniosomes, ethosomes, transferosomes, pharmacosomes, ufasomes, phytosomes, catanionic vesicles, and extracellular vesicles.

Notch Intracellular Domain Plasmid Delivery via Poly(Lactic-Co-Glycolic Acid) Nanoparticles to Upregulate Notch Pathway Molecules

Notch signaling is a highly conserved signaling system that is required for embryonic development and regeneration of organs. When the signal is lost, maldevelopment occurs and leads to a lethal state. Delivering exogenous genetic materials encoding Notch into cells can reestablish downstream signaling and rescue cellular functions. In this study, we utilized the negatively charged and FDA approved polymer poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) to encapsulate Notch Intracellular Domain-containing plasmid in nanoparticles. We show that primary human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) readily uptake the nanoparticles with and without specific antibody targets. We demonstrated that our nanoparticles are non-toxic, stable over time, and compatible with blood. We further demonstrated that HUVECs could be successfully transfected with these nanoparticles in static and dynamic environments. Lastly, we elucidated that these nanoparticles could upregulate the downstream genes of Notch signaling, indicating that the payload was viable and successfully altered the genetic downstream effects.

Phytosomes as Innovative Delivery Systems for Phytochemicals: A Comprehensive Review of Literature

Nowadays, medicinal herbs and their phytochemicals have emerged as a great therapeutic option for many disorders. However, poor bioavailability and selectivity might limit their clinical application. Therefore, bioavailability is considered a notable challenge to improve bio-efficacy in transporting dietary phytochemicals. Different methods have been proposed for generating effective carrier systems to enhance the bioavailability of phytochemicals. Among them, nano-vesicles have been introduced as promising candidates for the delivery of insoluble phytochemicals. Due to the easy preparation of the bilayer vesicles and their adaptability, they have been widely used and approved by the scientific literature. The first part of the review is focused on introducing phytosome technology as well as its applications, with emphasis on principles of formulations and characterization. The second part provides a wide overview of biological activities of commercial and non-commercial phytosomes, divided by systems and related pathologies. These results confirm the greater effectiveness of phytosomes, both in terms of biological activity or reduced dosage, highlighting curcumin and silymarin as the most formulated compounds. Finally, we describe the promising clinical and experimental findings regarding the applications of phytosomes. The conclusion of this study encourages the researchers to transfer their knowledge from laboratories to market, for a further development of these products.

A Novel Electroporation System for Living Cell Staining and Membrane Dynamics Interrogation

A novel electroporation system was developed to introduce transient membrane pores to cells in a spatially and temporally controlled manner, allowing us to achieve fast electrotransfection and live cell staining as well as to systematically interrogate the dynamics of the cell membrane. Specifically, using this platform, we showed that both reversible and irreversible electroporation could be induced in the cell population, with nano-sized membrane pores in the former case being able to self-reseal in ~10 min. In addition, green fluorescent protein(GFP)-vinculin plasmid and 543 phalloidin have been delivered successively into fibroblast cells, which enables us to monitor the distinct roles of vinculin and F-actin in cell adhesion and migration as well as their possible interplay during these processes. Compared to conventional bulk electroporation and staining methods, the new system offers advantages such as low-voltage operation, cellular level manipulation and testing, fast and adjustable transfection/staining and real-time monitoring; the new system therefore could be useful in different biophysical studies in the future.

Shedding light on gene therapy: Carbon dots for the minimally invasive image-guided delivery of plasmids and noncoding RNAs - A review

Recently, carbon dots (CDs) have attracted great attention due to their superior properties, such as biocompatibility, fluorescence, high quantum yield, and uniform distribution. These characteristics make CDs interesting for bioimaging, therapeutic delivery, optogenetics, and theranostics. Photoluminescence (PL) properties enable CDs to act as imaging-trackable gene nanocarriers, while cationic CDs with high transfection efficiency have been applied for plasmid DNA and siRNA delivery. In this review, we have highlighted the precursors, structure and properties of positively charged CDs to demonstrate the various applications of these materials for nucleic acid delivery. Additionally, the potential of CDs as trackable gene delivery systems has been discussed. Although there are several reports on cellular and animal approaches to investigating the potential clinical applications of these nanomaterials, further systematic multidisciplinary approaches are required to examine the pharmacokinetic and biodistribution patterns of CDs for potential clinical applications.

In silico and in vitro study of magnetic niosomes for gene delivery: The effect of ergosterol and cholesterol

A low transfection efficiency and failure to deliver therapeutic genes to target organs limit the use of vesicular systems in gene therapy. In this study, magnetic niosomes were used to improve transfection efficiency and overcome limitations. In this light, Tween 60 and Span 60 molecules were employed as the bilayer component and ergosterol and/or cholesterol as membrane-stabilizing agents. We studied the structural and dynamical properties of cholesterol-containing niosomes (ST60/Chol) and ergosterol-containing vesicles (ST60/Ergo) using the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation technique. In in vitro experiments, the protamine-condensed DNA along with magnetic nanoparticles were prepared and incorporated into the niosome to form magnetic niosome-entrapped protamine-condensed DNA (M-NPD). The MD simulation comparison of two bilayers showed that the ST60/Ergo vesicles have better properties for gene delivery. Our in vitro results confirmed the in silico results and revealed that Ergo-niosomes have smaller size, better polydispersity, and slower release of plasmid than Chol-niosome. Moreover, M-NPD-Ergo showed higher cellular uptake and gene expresssion in HEK-293T cell line compared to M-NPD-Chol vesicles.

Lawsone-loaded Niosome and its antitumor activity in MCF-7 breast Cancer cell line: a Nano-herbal treatment for Cancer

Phytochemicals like Lawsone have some drawbacks that stem from their poor solubility. Low solubility in aqueous mediums results in low bioavailability, poor permeability and instability of phytochemical compounds in biological environments. The aim of this study was to design nanoniosomes containing Lawsone (Law) using non-ionic surfactants and cholesterol. Niosomes were prepared by thin film hydration method (TFH). Then, they were loaded with Henna extract (HLaw) and standard Lawsone (SLaw), and two resulted formulations were compared. The henna extract was analyzed by mass gas chromatography. Size, zeta potential, polydispersity index (PDI) and morphology of the loaded formulations were evaluated by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and scanning electron spectroscopy (SEM). The incorporation and release rate of Law from niosome bilayers were evaluated by UV-Vis spectroscopy. In vitro experiments were carried out to evaluate antitumor activity in MCF-7 cell line. The results showed distinct spherical shapes and particle sizes were about 250 nm in diameter and have negative zeta potentials. Niosomes were stable at 4 °C for 2 months. Entrapment efficiently of both formulations was about 70% and showed a sustained release profile. In vitro study exhibited that using of niosome to encapsulating Law can significantly increase antitumor activity of formulation in MCF-7 cell line compared to Law solution (free Law). Thus, niosomes are a promising carrier system for delivery of phytochemical compounds that have poor solubility in biological fluids. Graphical abstract ᅟ.

Poly-l-lysine-coated superparamagnetic nanoparticles: a novel method for the transfection of pro-BDNF into neural stem cells

Poly-l-lysine-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs-PLL) were prepared and used as a novel-carrier for the transfer of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) into neural stem cells (NSCs) under the beneficial influence of an external magnetic field. Pro-BDNF, a gene from human brain cDNA libraries, was obtained by polymerase chain reaction and constructed in a mammalian expression vector (PSecTag2/HygroB). The nanoparticles (NPs) were examined using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, zeta potential, and Transmission electron microscopy. From the results, the levels of BDNF among the transfected and untransfected cells were 30.326 ± 5.9 and 5.85 ± 3.11 pg/mL, respectively, as detected by an ELISA method. Moreover, the enhanced green fluorescent protein vector was used to evaluate the gene expression efficiency for SPIONs-PLL as a non-viral carrier in NSCs. This was performed under the influence of a magnetic field and the transfection reagents (such as Lipofectamine 2000), which served as a positive control. The histological analysis revealed that the concentration of intracellular NPs was significantly higher than intercellular NPs. These results suggest that SPIONs-PLL can serve as a novel alternative for the transfection of BDNF-NSCs and could be used in gene therapy.

Development, physicochemical characterization, and antimicrobial evaluation of niosomal myrtle essential oil

Myrtus communis (myrtle) is well known for its therapeutic effects pertaining to the major secondary metabolites including essential oils (EOs). EOs are composed of volatile compounds and simply evaporate or decompose leading to their instability. Preparation of EOs niosomal formulation may be a promising approach to deal with these obstacles. Niosomal formulations of myrtle essential oil (nMEO) were provided using non-ionic surfactants and cholesterol (Chol). In the next steps, vesicle size, zeta potential, percentage of entrapment efficiency (EE%) and physical stability of nMEO were investigated. Finally, the effect of myrtle essential oil (MEO) and nMEO on microbial growth inhibition were assessed. Values for nMEO size and zeta potential ranged from 6.17 ± 0.32 to 7.24 ± 0.61 (μm) and -20.41 ± 0.17 to -31.75 ± 0.45 (mV), respectively. Higher degrees of EE% were obtained by F6 formulation (Span/Tween 60:Chol (50:50 molar ratio)). Moreover, niosomes have been reported to be stable at 4 °C during a three-month time period. It was revealed that nMEO F6 formulation inhibited growth of Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Serratia marcescens, and Bacillus subtilis at concentrations lower than that of MEO. Overall, it was found that stable multilamellar vesicles were formed in the presence of 0.5% MEO and F6 formulation. This formulation also exhibited better antibacterial activity than MEO.