Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology - Volume 17, Issue 3, 2016

Poly(ethylene glycol)-polypeptide (PEG-polypeptide) based polymeric micelles as therapeutic agent carriers have received considerable interest due to their advanced achievements in clinical trials. Polypeptides not only show well-defined secondary structure (alfa-helix and beta-sheet) and good biocompatibility, but can also be functionalized with various groups by direct N-carboxyanhydrides (NCAs) polymerization or further mod Read More

In the past decade, drug delivery systems that can respond to the tumor microenvironment or external stimuli have emerged as promising platforms for treating malignancies due to their improved antitumor efficacy and reduced side effects. In particular, biodegradable polymeric micelles have attracted increasing attention and been rapidly developed as a distinct therapeutic to overcome limitations of convention Read More

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool for silencing post-transcriptional gene expression, and thus exhibits great potential in cancer gene therapy. However, siRNA technology has not become an established strategy for cancer treatment, as it is a considerable challenge to deliver siRNA to the targeting sites. In this review, barricades in the systemic delivery of siRNA were systemati Read More

Among the difficulties encountered in the treatment of cancer are the physico-chemical properties of the chemotherapeutic agents; in particular low water solubility and low stability, resulting in poor efficacy. Due to their capability to form molecular inclusions with apolar molecules (or part of them) cyclodextrins constitute a powerful tool to prepare more efficient chemotherapeutic delivery systems such as nanoparticles. This Read More

Cationic gene vectors increased attractive for gene therapy. However, unstable systemic circulation due to the interaction of gene delivery system with blood cells limited the further application. Therefore, pH sensitive shielding systems were exploited, by which, the positive surface charge density of polyplexes was reduced, circulation time was improved and pH-triggered targeting delivery was promised. This mini review m Read More

For the first time the antimicrobial activities of hemocyanins from the molluscs Rapana venosa (RvH) and Helix aspersa (HaH) have been tested. From the hemolymph of the garden snail H. aspersa one structural subunit (βc-HaH ) and eight functional units (FUs, βc-HaH-a to βc-HaH-h) were isolated, and their N-terminal sequences and molecular weights, ranging between 45 and 65 kDa, determined. The antimicrobial test of Read More

The emergence of drug resistance and spread of new infectious diseases necessitated the development of novel antibiotics. Marine sponge-associated fungi represent a reservoir of novel molecules with diverse biological potentials. In this study, we isolated five nitrobenzoyloxy-substituted sesquiterpenes 1-5 from the culture mycelia of an endozoic fungus Aspergillus insulicola MD10-2, obtained from the South C Read More

The study aimed to evaluate the antiradical and antimicrobial (antibacterial and antifungal) potentials of ethanol mycelial extracts of selected Ganoderma species and strains and to define interand intraspecies diversity among Ganoderma species and strains. Ganoderma lucidum strains were good DPPH• scavengers (neutralizing up to 57.12% radicals), contrary to G. applanatum (20.35%) and G. carnosum (17.04%). High Read More

We discuss the role of Salvianolic acid A(SAA), one of the main effective components in Salvia Miltiorrhiza (known as 'Danshen' in traditional Chinese medicine), in apoptotic factors, the production of oxidative products, and the expression of Akt and NF-κB in angiotensin II (Ang II)-mediated murine macrophages. In the present study, Ang II was added to mice abdominal macrophages with or without addition of SAA. After cell identifi Read More

This project was planned to study the production of cholesterol lowering drug mevastatin by Aspergillus terreus GCBL-03 on pretreated substrate bagasse in solid state fermentation. Bagasse was pretreated by potassium hydroxide to delignify the substrate to readily become available to microorganism. It was noticed that pretreated bagasse exhibited 13.69±0.64 mg/100mL yield of mevastatin and 6.63±0.48g dry cell ma Read More