ABSTRACT
Three BS-BODIPY (brassinosteroids-4,4-difluoro-4-bora-3a,4a-diaza-s-indacene) conjugates were synthesized and their fluorescent and immunological properties were investigated. Two of the conjugates, having present all the functional groups characteristic of BS, were shown to be potentially useful as biological probes to study involvement of BS into physiological processes in living cells.
Subject(s)
Boron Compounds/chemistry , Brassinosteroids/chemistryABSTRACT
The specificity of carbohydrate-lectin interaction has been reported as an attractive strategy for drug delivery in cancer therapy because of the high levels of lectins in several human malignancies. A novel cationic glucosylated amphiphile was therefore synthesized, as a model system, to attribute specificity toward d-glucose receptors to liposome formulations. Fluorescence experiments demonstrated that the monomeric glucosylated amphiphile is capable of interacting with fluorescently labeled concanavalin A, a D-glucose specific plant lectin. The interaction of concanavalin A with liposomes composed of a phospholipid and the glucosylated amphiphile was demonstrated by agglutination observed by optical density and dynamic laser light scattering measurements, thus paving the way to the preparation of other glycosilated amphiphiles differing for the length of polyoxyethylenic spacer, the sugar moieties, and/or the length of the hydrophobic chain.
Subject(s)
Concanavalin A/chemistry , Liposomes/chemistry , Surface-Active Agents/chemistry , Cations/chemical synthesis , Cations/chemistry , Glycosylation , Liposomes/chemical synthesis , Models, Molecular , Molecular Structure , Surface-Active Agents/chemical synthesisABSTRACT
Three new pyrrolidinium based surfactants were synthesized and characterized as pure aggregate components and in mixtures with 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine to understand how the molecular structure of the cationic amphiphile and its mole percentage might affect the physicochemical properties of the resulting aggregates. The thermotropic behavior of the mixed liposomes was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry on multilamellar vesicles, whereas their size and surface potential were investigated on large unilamellar vesicles by dynamic laser light scattering and fluorescence experiments, respectively. The presence of either methoxy or hydroxy groups in the positions 3 and 4 of the pyrrolidinium ring as well as the presence of a second alkyl chain on pyrrolidinium nitrogen, controls the aggregates features.
