Pathological findings in sporadic inclusion body myositis and GNE myopathy.

OBJECTIVE: The following study compared the pathological findings between sporadic inclusion body myositis (sIBM) and Glucosamine (UDP-N-acetyl)-2-epimerase/N-acetylmannosamine kinase myopathy (GNEM) patients. METHODS: An enzyme histochemistry was used to compare the pathological characteristics between 11 patients with sIBM and 16 patients with GNEM. RESULTS: There were four pathological differences observed: (1) A majority of the rimmed vacuoles found in the sIBM patients resembled cracks, whereas the GNEM patients (P=0.004) had round or oval vacuoles. (2) A majority of the rimmed vacuoles that were located in the periphery of the atrophic muscle fibers of the sIBM patients. The patients with GNEM had a majority of the rimmed vacuoles in the center of the atrophic muscle fibers (P=0.001). (3) The patients with sIBM had basophilic granules in the rimmed vacuoles, which appeared to be fine granules that were sand-like particles. The GNEM patients had coarse granules (P=0.018). (4) The proportion of mononuclear cells invasion of muscle fibers was larger in the sIBM patients than the GNEM patients (P=0.047). The GNEM patients were younger on average than the sIBM patients at the onset of symptoms (P<0.001) and at the diagnosis age (P<0.001). The electromyography (EMG) showed the presence of myogenic lesions in 10 patients with sIBM, both myogenic and neurogenic lesions in one patients with sIBM and myogenic lesions in 16 patients with GNEM. CONCLUSION: There were significant differences in the morphologies of the rimmed vacuoles between sIBM patients and GNEM patients.

Nanoemulsion for solubilization, stabilization, and in vitro release of pterostilbene for oral delivery.

Pterostilbene, being extracted from many plants, has significant biological activities in preventing cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases so as to have great potential applications in pharmaceutical fields. But the poor solubility and stability of pterostilbene strictly restrained its applications. As a good protection and oral delivery system, an optimal nanoemulsion for pterostilbene was developed by using low-energy emulsification method. Systematic pseudo-ternary phase diagrams have been studied in optimization of nanoemulsion formulations. The prepared pterostilbene nanoemulsion was characterized by transmission electron microscope, Fourier transform Raman spectrum, and laser droplet size analyzer. Nanoemulsion droplets are circular with smooth margin, and the mean size is 55.8 ± 10.5 nm. The results illustrated that the nanoemulsion as oral delivery system dramatically improved the stability and solubility of pterostilbene, and in vitro release of pterostilbene was significantly improved (96.5% in pH 3.6 buffer; 13.2% in pH 7.4 buffer) in comparison to the pterostilbene suspension (lower than 21.4% in pH 3.6 buffer; 2.6% in pH 7.4 buffer).

Amino acid-PEGylated resveratrol and its influence on solubility and the controlled release behavior.

A set of polyethylene glycol (PEG)-resveratrol (RES) conjugates with amino acid as spacers was designed and synthesized to improve certain defects of resveratrol, such as poor solubility, its short half-life and the difficulty of obtaining controlled release. Amino acids, which are released along with RES, are necessary for human health and likely have a facilitating effect on the absorption of the drug. The prepared PEG conjugates were characterized by FT-IR, (1)H-NMR, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Evaluation of free RES, loading capability, solubility and in vitro release of conjugates was also conducted. The results show that solubility in water of all the conjugates is over 900 mg·mL(-1) and controlled release of RES was achieved. Therefore, the developed PEG conjugate is a favorable system for modifying the solubility and bioavailability of RES.