Direct surface modification of dexamethasone microcrystals via the LbL process produced monodispersed suspensions with diffusion-controlled sustained drug release via the polyelectrolyte multilayer shell.
A highly-interdisciplinary approach has been developed for minimizing the immunogenicity of films, coatings, microcapsules and other nano-structured materials fabricated from designed polypeptide chains. It is to base the amino-acid sequences on solvent-exposed regions in the folded states of proteins from the same organism. Each such region that meets defined criteria with respect to charge is called a sequence motif. The approach becomes more specifically tailored for intravenous applications by requiring an employed sequence motif to correspond to a known blood protein. An algorithm has been developed to identify sequence motifs in protein-encoding regions of a genome. This work is focused on sequence motifs of charge per unit length >0.5 at neutral pH. It has been found that the number of unique sequence motifs meeting this criterion in available human genome data is maximal for motifs of approx. 7 residues in length. We have designed polypeptides on the basis of computational analysis and shown that they can be used to fabricate nano-structured thin films by electrostatic layer-by-layer assembly (ELBL). The results of this work are discussed with a view to possible applications in biotechnology, notably development of biocompatible coatings and microcapsules.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.