In plants, sinapate esters offer crucial protection from the deleterious effects of ultraviolet radiation exposure. These esters are a promising foundation for designing UV filters, particularly for the UVA region (400 – 315 nm), where adequate photoprotection is currently lacking. Whilst sinapate esters are highly photostable due to a cis-trans (and vice versa) photoisomerization, the cis-isomer can display increased genotoxicity; an alarming concern for current cinnamate ester-based human sunscreens. To eliminate this potentiality, here we synthesize a sinapate ester with equivalent cis- and trans-isomers. We investigate its photostability through innovative ultrafast spectroscopy on a skin mimic, thus modelling the as close to true environment of sunscreen formulas. These studies are complemented by assessing endocrine disruption activity and antioxidant potential. We contest, from our results, that symmetrically functionalized sinapate esters may show exceptional promise as nature-inspired UV filters in next generation sunscreen formulations.
This work presents an experimental setup to control the way in which pressure interferes with the repeatability of in vivo THz skin measurements. By integrating a pressure sensor circuit into our THz system, it is possible to identify which measurements were taken within a previously specified pressure range. The live response of the pressure sensor helps to acquire data within the desired pressure leading to greater consistency of data between measurements. Additionally, a protocol is proposed to help achieve repeatable results and to remove the effects of the natural variation of the skin through the course of the day. This technique has been shown to be able to quantify the changes induced in the skin following the application of a moisturising skin product and shows the measured result to be significantly different from natural skin variation. This research therefore prepares the way for further studies on the effectiveness of different skin products using in vivo THz measurements.
Biofunctional textiles are materials with new properties and added value. In this work, emphasis was placed on the release capacity of the active principle (caffeine) from the formulation or from the biofunctional textile. In addition, a new in vitro methodology of percutaneous absorption was designed to demonstrate the delivery of encapsulated caffeine from the biofunctional textile to the different skin layers. In the first step, permeation studies through a nylon membrane were performed and the release capacity of caffeine present in the samples was quantified. In the second step, it was possible to detect the presence of caffeine in the different layers of the skin, while maintaining a close contact between the biofunctional textile and the skin by using pressure during the percutaneous absorption test. The new system is satisfactory for measuring the pass of the active principle from the biofunctional textile to the different skin layers.
Terahertz (THz) in vivo reflection imaging can be used to assess the water content of the surface of the skin. This study presents the results of treating 20 subjects with aqueous, anhydrous and water-oil emulsion samples and observing the changes induced in the skin using THz sensing. These regions were also measured with a corneometer, the present gold standard for skin hydration assessment within the cosmetics industry. We find that THz sensing is effective at observing the presence of oil and water on the surface of the skin, these results can be verified with the measurements of capacitance taken by the corneometer. The THz measurements reveal a distinction between the responses of subjects with initially dry or well hydrated skin, this observation is particularly noticeable with the oil-based samples. Additionally, moderate correlation was found between the THz reflected amplitude and capacitance of untreated skin with a correlation coefficient of r = −0.66, suggesting THz sensing has promising potential for assessing skin hydration.
Aspartimide formation is one of the most common secondary reactions on solid phase peptide synthesis. In the present work, we describe the optimization of the synthesis of two thrombospondin fragments containing an Asp-Gly sequence that show a strong tendency to form cyclic aspartimide derivatives in an unusual high percentage. Several different strategies were applied changing type of resin, Fmoc-deprotection reagents, coupling additives, resin cleavage cocktails and the use of Hmb-Gly derivative to minimize the extension of this byproduct. Best results were obtained with cross-linked ethoxylate acrylate (CLEAR-cross-linked ethoxylate Acrylate Resin)-type resin and pip/dimethylformamide deprotection. Besides, as in biological assays the aspartimide containing sequence resulted to be more active than the linear one, the optimization of its synthesis was also carried out.
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