Trypanosoma evansi is a zoonotic parasite associated with high animal mortality that has gained importance due to its capacity to infect humans. Recently, some evidences have demonstrated that T. evansi infection causes severe genotoxic and cytotoxic damage in brain cells, contributing to the pathogenesis and clinical signs of the disease. In this sense, the aim of this study was to evaluate whether nerolidol-loaded in nanospheres, a natural compound with trypanocidal and neuroprotective effects, is able to protect the brain tissue from the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects found during T. evansi infections. Trypanosoma evansi induced brain genotoxic effects through increased damage index (DI) and frequency of damage (FD) when compared to the control group. Moreover, T. evansi induced cytotoxic effects through the reduction of brain cell viability compared to the control group. The metabolites of nitric oxide (NO ) increased in infected animals compared to the control group. The treatment with nerolidol-loaded in nanospheres prevented the increase on brain DI, FD, and NO levels, as well as the reduction on cell viability. Based on these evidences, these results confirm that T. evansi induces genotoxic and cytotoxic damage mediated by the upregulation of NO levels. The most important finding is that nerolidol-loaded in nanospheres was able to prevent DNA damage and cell mortality through the modulation of brain NO levels. In summary, this treatment can be considered an interesting approach to prevent T. evansi brain damage due its anti-inflammatory property.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity of tucumã oil nanocapsules from the Amazon region in silver catfish, Rhamdia quelen. Fish were exposed to water treated with different concentrations of tucumã nanocapsules, white, solubilized oil and surfactant vehicles. After three days of exposure, fish were euthanized and liver, gills and brain removed for analysis of the dichlorofluorescein, nitric oxide and PicoGreen ® assays. Plasma was collected for assay of hepatic transaminases. The nanocapsules had a diameter of 221±1.27 nm, confirmed by atomic force microscopy. The oil nanocapsules were not toxic to this species of fish, but white nanocapsules and surfactant increased the levels of reactive oxygen species. Thus, nanocapsules are promising for the transport of tucumã oil. In view of the anti-inflammatory properties of this oil, it is possible to envisage its application in skin diseases for example, since they present essentially inflammatory conditions.
The chemotherapeutic all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) used in the treatment of Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia has adverse effects on its oral administration, with which we incorporated a system of drugs, the nanocapsules, in order to have a possible improvement in solubility, photosensitivity, lower toxicity, generating pharmacological efficacy. The objective was to evaluate and compare the hemolytic and coagulation activity of the free drug (AL), nanoencapsulated (NA) and the white nanocapsules (NB) by analyzing the results of hemolysis, Prothrombin Time (PT) and Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time (APTT). We developed a prospective study of treatments at different concentrations of 0.25; 0.5; 1.0; 1.5; 2.0; 2.5 μg/mL. For the first test, all concentrations showed hemolytic activity, but when compared to NA with ATRA it is observed that these carriers induced lower hemolytic toxicity. In the PT test the nanoparticles at the two lowest concentrations remained in the physiological range (12 - 15 seconds). For the APTT test the three lowest concentrations remained within the control (25 - 35 seconds). Thus, we believe there is a promising benefit of using these nanoparticles developed and no doubt further studies will be performed to confirm the responses obtained here.
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