Encapsulation of Vitamins A and E as Spray-Dried Additives for the Feed Industry.

Encapsulated fat-soluble powders containing vitamin A (VA) and E (VE) were prepared as a feasible additive for extruded feed products. The effect of the encapsulating agents (Capsul-CAP®, sodium caseinate-SC) in combination with Tween 80 (TW) as an emulsifier and maltodextrin (MD) as a wall material on the physicochemical properties of emulsions and powders was evaluated. First, nanoemulsions containing MD:CAP:TW:VA/VE and MD:SC:TW:VA/VE were prepared and characterized. Then, powders were obtained by means of spray-drying and analyzed in terms of the product yield, encapsulation efficiency, moisture content, porosity, surface morphology, chemical structure, and thermal properties and thermo-oxidative/thermal stability. Results showed that although nanoemulsions were obtained for all the compositions, homogeneous microcapsules were found after the drying process. High product yield and encapsulation efficiency were obtained, and the presence of the vitamins was corroborated. The characteristics of the powders were mainly influenced by the encapsulating agent used and also by the type of vitamin. In general, the microcapsules remained thermally stable up to 170 °C and, therefore, the proposed encapsulation systems for vitamins A and E were suitable for the preparation of additives for the feed manufacturing through the extrusion process.

Spray-Drying Performance and Thermal Stability of L-Ascorbic Acid Microencapsulated with Sodium Alginate and Gum Arabic.

The potential of sodium alginate (ALG) and gum arabic (GA) as wall polymers for L-ascorbic acid (AA) encapsulation as a tool for their preservation against the thermo-oxidative degradation was investigated. The influence of such polymers used as wall material on the AA-content, size, encapsulation efficiency, encapsulation yield and thermo-oxidative stability were evaluated. The AA-microparticles were obtained using the spray-drying technique. An experimental Taguchi design was employed to assess the influence of the variables in the encapsulation process. The microparticles morphology and size distribution were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and laser diffraction. The thermal stability of AA microparticles was studied by differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetry analysis. This work points out the viability to encapsulate AA using GA and ALG through a spray-drying process. In general, a product yield ranging from 35.1% to 83.2% and an encapsulation efficiency above 90% were reached. Spherical microparticles with a smooth surface were obtained with a mean diameter around 6 µm and 9 µm for the those prepared with GA and ALG, respectively. The thermo-oxidative analysis showed that both polymers allow maintaining AA stable up to 188 °C, which is higher than the traditional processing temperature used in the fish feed industry.

Binding free energy calculations on E-selectin complexes with sLex oligosaccharide analogs.

Molecular dynamics simulations and binding free energy calculations were employed to examine the interaction between E-selectin and six structurally related oligosaccharides including the physiological ligand sialyl Lewis x. Molecular dynamics simulations revealed that sialyl Lewis x and its mimics share a common binding region and similar interactions with E-selectin involving the formation of hydrogen bonds with Glu80, Asn82, Asn83, Arg97, Asn105, Asp106, and Glu107 residues and electrostatic contacts with Ca2+ and the positively charged Lys111 and Lys 113 residues. Regarding binding free energy calculations, the performance of the rigorous but computationally expensive pathway methods TI, BAR, and MBAR was compared to the less rigorous but faster end-point methods MM/PBSA and MM/GBSA aimed at identifying a suitable approach to deal with the very subtle binding free energy differences within the ligands under study. All methods succeeded in predicting increased binding affinities for sialyl Lewis x analogs compared to the native ligand with absolute errors <1 kcal/mol. The best correlation with experimental data was obtained by TI (r2  = 0.84), followed by MBAR (r2  = 0.80), BAR (r2  = 0.73), MM/PBSA (r2  = 0.73) and MM/GBSA (r2  = 0.47). These results provide valuable information to increase understanding about E-selectin-oligosaccharide interactions and conduct further research aimed at designing novel ligands targeting this protein.

Discovery of New E-Selectin Inhibitors by Virtual Screening, Fluorescence Binding Assays, and STD NMR Experiments.

E-selectin is an endothelial protein that participates in the adhesion of metastatic cancer cells, and is therefore a relevant target for antitumor therapeutic intervention. In this work, virtual screening was used to identify new E-selectin inhibitors from a subset of drug-like molecules retrieved from the ZINC database, including the physiological ligand sLe(x) as reference structure (PDB ID: 1G1T). Four hits were chosen and subjected to molecular dynamics simulations and fluorescence binding assays, which led to the determination of experimental dissociation constants between 333 and 1012 µm. The candidate with the highest affinity was studied by saturation transfer difference (STD) NMR experiments and complete relaxation and conformational exchange matrix analysis of saturation transfer (CORCEMA-ST), aimed at identifying the preferable binding mode with E-selectin. Our results revealed that this new inhibitor binds more strongly than sLe(x) in the E-selectin binding site, in good agreement with simulation predictions. These properties will prove valuable for the future design of drugs that target E-selectin.