Sharif Digital Repository

Recent insights into the nanomedicine have revealed that nanoplatforms enhance the efficacy of carrier in therapeutic applications. Here, multifunctional nanoplatforms were utilized in miRNA-101 delivery and NIR thermal therapy to induce apoptosis in breast cancer cells. Au nanorods (NRs) or nanospheres (NSs) covered with graphene oxide (GO) were prepared and functionalized with polyethylene glycol as a stabilizer and poly-L-arginine (P-L-Arg) as a targeting agent. In nanoplatforms, coupling Au@GO prepared stable structures with higher NIR reactivity. P-L-Arg substantially enhanced the cellular uptake and gene retardation of stuffs coated by them. However, rod-shape nanoplatforms indicated... 

In the present study, the tri-layer nanofibers were synthesized via triaxial electrospinning process to control the sustained delivery of Doxorubicin (DOX), Paclitaxel (PTX) and 5- fluorouracil (5-FU) anticancer drugs from nanofibers. The 5-FU molecules were incorporated into the core solution (chitosan/polyvinyl alcohol (CS/PVA)) to fabricate the CS/PVA/5-FU inner layer of nanofibers. The intermediate layer was prepared from poly(lactic acid)/chitosan (PLA/CS) nanofibers. The DOX and PTX molecules were initially loaded into the g-C3N4 nanosheets and following were incorporated into the PLA/CS solution to fabricate the outer layer of nanofibers. The synthesized nanosheets and nanofibers were... 

Introduction: To date, numerous iron-based nanostructures have been designed for cancer therapy applications. Although some of them were promising for clinical applications, few efforts have been made to maximize the therapeutic index of these carriers. Herein, PEGylated silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (PS-IONs) were introduced as multipurpose stimuli-responsive co-delivery nanocarriers for a combination of dual-drug chemotherapy and photothermal therapy. Methods: Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized via the sonochemical method and coated by a thin layer of silica. The nanostructures were then further modified with a layer of di-carboxylate polyethylene glycol... 

Introduction: To date, numerous iron-based nanostructures have been designed for cancer therapy applications. Although some of them were promising for clinical applications, few efforts have been made to maximize the therapeutic index of these carriers. Herein, PEGylated silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (PS-IONs) were introduced as multipurpose stimuli-responsive co-delivery nanocarriers for a combination of dual-drug chemotherapy and photothermal therapy. Methods: Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized via the sonochemical method and coated by a thin layer of silica. The nanostructures were then further modified with a layer of di-carboxylate polyethylene glycol... 

Phytochemical investigation of the aerial parts of Salvia eremophila led to the isolation of a lupane triterpenoid, 3β, 20-dihydroxylupane-28-oic acid (1), together with eight other compounds, comprising three diterpene, two triterpene, two flavonoids and a steroidal glucoside. Their structures were elucidated by interpretation of their one-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR spectra and completed by the analysis of the HRESIMS data. Compounds 1, 2-4 and 8 were evaluated for their cytotoxicities against five human tumour cell lines. Compounds 1 and 3 hold a good potential for use in future studies due to their anti-cancer properties  

Iron oxide nanoparticles, γ-Fe2O3NP, were deposited onto the surface of multi-walled carbon nanotubes and CNT/γ-Fe2O3NP hybrid nanomaterials were obtained. Then linear-dendritic ABA type block copolymers consisting of polyethylene glycol as B block and poly(citric acid) as A block, PCA-PEG-PCA, were synthesized and cisplatin (cis-diamminedichloroplatinum (CDDP) - a platinum-based chemotherapy drug) was conjugated with their carboxyl functional groups and CDDP/PCA-PEG-PCA anticancer prodrugs were prepared. Noncovalent interactions between CDDP/PCA-PEG-PCA anticancer prodrugs and CNT/γ-Fe2O3NP hybrid nanomaterials led to CDDP/PCA-PEG-PCA/CNT/γ-Fe2O3NP drug delivery systems. There are several... 

Doxorubicin (DOX), a common cancer chemotherapeutics, was conjugated to folate-modified thiolated-polyethylene glycol-functionalized gold nanoparticles. The in vitro, controlled release behavior of DOX-loaded gold nanoparticles was observed using porous dialysis membranes (cut-off = 2 kDa). DOX-loaded gold nanoparticles had higher cytotoxicity for folate-receptor-positive cells (KB cells) compared to folate-receptor-negative cells (A549 cells) which were 48 and 62% viable for 10 μM doxorubicin, respectively. This indicates the potential of these nano-carriers for targeted-delivery. In addition, healthy cell viability was 69% for 10 μM free doxorubicin whereas for the same content of drug in... 

In recent years miscellaneous smart micro/nanosystems that respond to various exogenous/endogenous stimuli including temperature, magnetic/electric field, mechanical force, ultrasound/light irradiation, redox potentials, and biomolecule concentration have been developed for targeted delivery and release of encapsulated therapeutic agents such as drugs, genes, proteins, and metal ions specifically at their required site of action. Owing to physiological differences between malignant and normal cells, or between tumors and normal tissues, pH-sensitive nanosystems represent promising smart delivery vehicles for transport and delivery of anticancer agents. Furthermore, pH-sensitive systems... 

It remains unclear whether causal, rather than merely correlational, relationships in molecular networks can be inferred in complex biological settings. Here we describe the HPN-DREAM network inference challenge, which focused on learning causal influences in signaling networks. We used phosphoprotein data from cancer cell lines as well as in silico data from a nonlinear dynamical model. using the phosphoprotein data, we scored more than 2,000 networks submitted by challenge participants. The networks spanned 32 biological contexts and were scored in terms of causal validity with respect to unseen interventional data. A number of approaches were effective, and incorporating known biology was... 

Background: Understanding cancer development crossing several spatial-temporal scales is of great practical significance to better understand and treat cancers. It is difficult to tackle this challenge with pure biological means. Moreover, hybrid modeling techniques have been proposed that combine the advantages of the continuum and the discrete methods to model multiscale problems. Methods: In light of these problems, we have proposed a new hybrid vascular model to facilitate the multiscale modeling and simulation of cancer development with respect to the agent-based, cellular automata and machine learning methods. The purpose of this simulation is to create a dataset that can be used for... 

New dual light/temperature-responsive nanocarriers were synthesized using bimetallic plasmonic Au-Ag and Ag-Au nanoparticles (NPs) as cores of vehicles which subsequently functionalized with an upper critical solubility temperature–based poly acrylamide-co-acrylonitrile using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer for spatiotemporally controlled chemo-photothermal synergistic cancer therapy. The bimetallic cores were assigned to sense wavelengths close to the localized surface plasmon resonance of monometallic NP shell to produce heat which not only can increase the surrounding temperature over the upper critical solubility temperature of polymer to open its valves and promote drug... 

Hyperthermia generally means as increasing the temperature of particular region of body to rise 5 °C above the body's physiological temperature. Here, we investigate the thermal therapy of PEGylated cobalt ferrite nanoparticles prepared by hydrothermal approach on cancerous cell line in the alternative current magnetic field. To characterize of the magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometer were used. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed the spinel phase formation of the MNPs. Cytotoxicity of MNPs using MTT assay on L929 cell lines showed the PEGylated... 

Introduction: Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), especially those containing cadmium, have undergone marked improvements and are now widely used nanomaterials in applicable biological fields. However, great concerns exist regarding their toxicity in biomedical applications. Because of the lack of sufficient data regarding the toxicity mechanism of QDs, this study aimed to evaluate the cytotoxicity of three types of QDs: CdTe QDs, high yield CdTe QDs, and CdTe/CdS core/shell QDs on two human breast cancer cell lines MDA-MB468 and MCF-7. Methods: The breast cancer cells were treated with different concentrations of QDs, and cell viability was evaluated via MTT assay. Hoechst staining was... 

In this study, the influence of vascular bed comprising terminal arterial branches on heat transfer in a liver tumor exposed to high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is studied numerically. Also, the effect of vascular density on temperature distribution is investigated. A coupled set of acoustics, thermal, and fluid models is used to calculate the temperature distribution in the liver. The numerical model is established based on the Westervelt and bioheat equations along with the Navier-Stokes equations. Moreover, the acoustic streaming effect is included with Newtonian and non-Newtonian flow assumptions. It is found that in a vascular bed comprising terminal arterial branches, the... 

Isolation and characterization of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) found in blood samples of cancer patients have been considered as a reliable source for cancer prognosis and diagnosis. A new continuous microfluidic platform has been designed in this investigation for simultaneous capture and characterization of CTCs based on their deformability. The deformability-based chip (D-Chip) consists of two sections of separation and characterization where slanted weirs with a gap of 7 μm were considered. Although sometimes CTCs and leukocytes have the same size, the deformability differs in such a way that can be exploited for enrichment purposes. MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines were used for the... 

Herein, the graphene oxide (GO)/cobalt ferrite nanoparticles were used to apply the heat treatment on the breast cancer cell line of MCF7. The synthesized nanoparticles were evaluated before in vitro and in vivo studies, using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermal property and relaxivity measurement. The nanoparticles showed a diameter of 5 nm with the ferrimagnetic property. Also, the nanoparticles were well distributed on the GO nanosheets. The related peaks of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles were approved by using XRD and XPS assays. During the in vitro investigations, IC50 with... 

Breast cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer in women; hence, many researches have been focused on developing effective treatment protocols. In this study, a novel nanocarrier was fabricated for gene and photothermal combination cancer therapy by conjugating histone methyltransferase complex subunit SET1 (hSET1) on reduced polydopamine coated graphene oxide nanosheets (rGO-PDA). The rGO-PDA nanocarriers provide higher near-infrared absorption and further integrating with hSET1 antisense as an anticancer gene that down-regulates the amount of hSET1 overexpressed and suppresses the proliferation of cancer cells. The nanoplatform was prepared by polymerizing of dopamine, a mussel adhesive... 

Simulating signal transduction in cellular signaling networks provides predictions of network dynamics by quantifying the changes in concentration and activity-level of the individual proteins. Since numerical values of kinetic parameters might be difficult to obtain, it is imperative to develop non-parametric approaches that combine the connectivity of a network with the response of individual proteins to signals which travel through the network. The activity levels of signaling proteins computed through existing non-parametric modeling tools do not show significant correlations with the observed values in experimental results. In this work we developed a non-parametric computational... 

Clioquinol is an antifungal, antiprotozoal and an Alzheimer's disease drug with cytotoxic activity toward human cancer cells. The electrochemical behavior of clioquinol and its oxidation product was studied using cyclic, differential pulse and square-wave voltammetry over a wide pH range on a glassy carbon electrode. The results revealed that the oxidation of clioquinol is an irreversible pH-dependent process that proceeds with the transfer of one electron and one proton in an adsorption-controlled mechanism and results in the formation of a main oxidation product, which adsorbs very strongly on the glassy carbon surface. The charge transfer coefficient was calculated as 0.64. The adsorbed... 

In this work, the synthesized graphene oxide/TiO2/doxorubicin (GO/TiO2/DOX) composites were loaded into the chitosan/poly(lactic acid) (PLA) solutions to fabricate the electrospun chitosan/PLA/GO/TiO2/DOX nanofibrous scaffolds via electrospinning process. The synthesized composites and nanofibers were characterized using X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. Three-factor three-level central composite design was used to determine the influence of PLA to chitosan ratio, TiO2/DOX content and GO/TiO2/DOX content on the release of DOX from nanofibrous scaffolds. Drug loading efficiency and drug release behavior from...