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Niosomes are self-assemblies of non-ionic surfactants into vesicular structures, which mimic cell membranes in several aspects and potentially used as transdermal carriers for hydrophilic or hydrophobic drugs. However, controlling the amount of prescribed drug is absolutely important during transdermal delivery. The drug entrapment in a niosome, depends on several factors such as the bilayer arrangement, size and surface charge of a particular niosome. Hence, a systematic synthetic and spectroscopic study will convey the important information about drug entrapment and even controlling the entrapment, upon structural variation of the niosomes. In this report, we show that how the hydrophobic bilayer arrangement can be crucial to alter the molecular entrapment inside the niosome.For such study, niosomes are synthesized, which contain bilayers of different capacities. Entrapment and release studies are performed subsequently using common fluorophores: coumarin-153 (a hydrophobic dye) and rhodamine 6G (a water loving dye). Raman Spectroscopy is extensively used to characterize the bilayer disorderness for the synthesized niosomes. Our study reveals, that the niosome with ordered bilayer can entrap the hydrophobic dye coumarin-153 significantly more than the niosome containing a disordered bilayer. However, we have also identified that these entrapment efficiencies of the niosomes are reversed in a substantial way by the addition of ionic surfactants like CTAB, to the niosome. -pilani.ac.in [b] Dr.

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Full-color fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) are produced by a facile and green hydrothermal method followed by the differential washing technique. Eucalyptus twigs are used as a precursor to synthesize multiemissive light blue, blue, green, and red CNPs. Brilliant Blue FCF (BB) is a widely used synthetic food colorant, which is toxic for the human body, when consumed beyond the permitted limit. Herein, we demonstrate light blue CNPs as a sensor for selective and sensitive detection of BB via a fluorescence quenching mechanism with a limit of detection of 200 nM. Temperature-dependent fluorescence and 1 H NMR studies confirmed the mechanism as combined dynamic and static quenching. To demonstrate the practical efficacy of the sensor, BB is effectively detected and estimated in selected food samples procured from the market. Moreover, the biocompatibility of light blue and blue CNPs is examined and confirmed by performing a cytotoxicity assay on MDA-MB-231 cell lines. Subsequently, the cellular imaging study is also carried out to explore the internalization process of the CNPs as a function of concentration. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that Eucalyptus twigs, a natural source of high abundance, are used as raw materials and valorized for sensing artificial food color and bioimaging purposes.

Aquasomes (AQ) are self-assembled nanostructures, made up of a spherical hydroxyapatite core and a carbohydrate layer on top, for delivering bioactive molecules like proteins, peptides, etc., which are adsorbed on the carbohydrate layer. This is the first report of its kind demonstrating AQ as an efficient dual drug delivery system, capable of releasing bioactive molecule and a hydrophobic drug together. The synthesized AQ before and after adsorption of the bioactive molecule are characterized using dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, small-angle X-ray scattering, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and Raman spectroscopy. BSA (bovine serum albumin) protein is used as the model bioactive molecule for the in vitro dual release studies along with representative hydrophobic drugs Coumarin 153 (C153), Warfarin (WAR), and Ibuprofen (IBU). The release behaviors of the hydrophobic drugs are explained by studying their binding interactions with BSA. The binding interactions of the drugs with BSA are analyzed by carrying out fluorescence quenching experiment of BSA, site marking competition experiment, anisotropy, and E T (30) studies. Further, in vitro biocompatibility studies are performed for dually loaded AQ by using hemolysis assay. The hemolysis assay do not show any lysing of the red blood cells, suggesting the formulations to be clinically capable for administration.