Synthesis and characterization of a macromolecular magnetic resonance imaging and delivery system with hyaluronic acid as a carrier.

Using hyaluronic acid (HA) as macromolecular drug carriers, a glutathione-responsive imaging drug delivery system HA-SS-a-Gd-DOTA was formed by conjugating gadolinium chelates and cytarabine. This system exhibited T1-reflexivity (21.9 mmol-1 L s-1, 0.5 T) that was higher than that of gadoterate meglumine. In an acidic environment, in vitro drug release reached 63.4% in 24 h. Low cytotoxicity indicated that this system has good biocompatibility. In vivo mouse imaging studies showed that tumor signaling was significantly enhanced. About 58% of the signal enhancement was obtained 50 min after injection of the drug. The degradation of the hyaluronic acid macromolecular chains in vivo makes it an ideal tumor imaging diagnostic agent because it did not cause damage to important organs of the mice.

Three Dimensional Solution Structure of Neurotoxin CM-11 from the Ophiophagus hannah.

The Ophiophagus hannah (King Cobra) neurotoxin CM-11 is a small protein with 72 amino acid residues. Based on complete assignments of (1)H-NMR resonances and determination of secondary structures of CM-11, 349 distance and 27 dihedral angle constraints including 19 psi's and 8 Xi (1)'s were collected from NOESY and DQF-COSY, and the chemical stereospecific assignment of Beta(1)H was partially achieved. Twelve structures with lower energy were obtained via metric matrix distance geometry and refinement with simulated annealing. These structures have a low RMSD of 0.14 nm for backbone atoms and 0.20 nm for heavy atoms, with no distance constraint violation more than 0.05 nm, and no dihedral angle violation more than 3deg;.

Complete Assignment of (1)H-NMR Resonances of the King Cobra Neurotoxin CM-11.

The king cobra (Ophiophagus Hannah) neurotoxin CM-Il is long-chain peptide with 72 amino acid residues. Its complete assignment of (1)H-NMR resonances was obtained using various 2D-NMR technologies, including DQF-COSY, clean-TOCSY and NOESY.

Determination of the Secondary Structure of the king Cobra Neurotoxin CM-11.

The king cobra neurotoxin CM-11 is a small protein with 72 amino acid residues. After its complete assignments of (1)H-NMR resonance's were obtained using various 2D-NMR technologies, including DQF-COSY, clean-TOCSY and NOESY, the secondary structure was analysed by studying the various NOEs extracted from the NOESY spectra and the distribution of chemical shifts. The secondary structure was finally determined by MCD as follows: a triple-strand antiparallel beta sheet with I20-W26, R37-A43 and V53-S59 as its beta strands, a short alpha helix formed by W30-G35 and four turns formed by P7-K1O, C14-G17, K50-V53 and D61-N64.