Aminoferrocene-based prodrugs are activated under cancer-specific conditions (high concentration of reactive oxygen species, ROS) with the formation of glutathione scavengers (p-quinone methide) and ROS-generating iron complexes. Herein, we explored three structural modifications of these prodrugs in an attempt to improve their properties: (a) the attachment of a -COOH function to the ferrocene fragment leads to the improvement of water solubility and reactivity in vitro but also decreases cell-membrane permeability and biological activity, (b) the alkylation of the N-benzyl residue does not show any significant affect, and (c) the attachment of the second arylboronic acid fragment improves the toxicity (IC50) of the prodrugs toward human promyelocytic leukemia cells (HL-60) from 52 to 12 μM. Finally, we demonstrated that the prodrugs are active against primary chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells, with the best compounds exhibiting an IC50 value of 1.5 μM. The most active compounds were found to not affect mononuclear cells and representative bacterial cells.
In this paper, we present the development of a highly sensitive, specific and reproducible nanobiosensor to detect one specific liver cancer biomarker, the manganese super oxide dismutase (MnSOD). The high sensitivity and reproducibility was reached by using SERS on gold nanostructures (nanocylinders and coupled nanorods) produced by electron-beam lithography (EBL). The specificity of the detection was provided by the use of a specific aptamer with high affinity to the targeted protein as a recognition element. With such a sensor, we have been able to observe the SERS signal of the MnSOD at concentrations down to the nM level and to show with negative control that this detection is specific due to the use of the aptamer. This latter issue has allowed us to detect the MnSOD in different body fluids (serum and saliva) at concentrations in the nM range. We have then demonstrated the effectiveness of our SERS nanobiosensor using aptamer as a bioreceptor for the detection of disease biomarker at low concentration and in complex fluids.
The anisotropic morphology of gold nanorods (AuNRs) has been shown to lead to nonuniform ligand distribution and preferential etching through their tips. We have recently demonstrated that this effect can be achieved by biocatalytic oxidation with hydrogen peroxide, catalyzed by the enzyme horseradish peroxidase (HRP). We report here that modification of AuNRs with thiol-containing organic molecules such as glutathione and thiocholine hinders enzymatic AuNR etching. Higher concentrations of thiol-containing molecules in the reaction mixture gradually decrease the rate of enzymatic etching, which can be monitored by UV-vis spectroscopy through changes in the AuNR longitudinal plasmon band. This effect can be applied to develop novel optical assays for acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity. The biocatalytic hydrolysis of acetylthiocholine by AChE yields thiocholine, which prevents enzymatic AuNR etching in the presence of HRP. Additionally, the same bioassay can be used for the detection of nanomolar concentrations of AChE inhibitors such as paraoxon and galanthamine.
We report an innovative photoelectrochemical process (PEC) based on graphite electrode modified with electroactive polyvinylpyridine bearing osmium complex (Os-PVP). The system relies on the in situ enzymatic generation of CdS quantum dots (QDs). Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) catalyzes the hydrolisis of sodium thiophosphate (TP) to hydrogen sulfide (H2S) which in the presence Cd(2+) ions yields CdS semiconductor nanoparticles (SNPs). Irradiation of SNPs with the standard laboratory UV-illuminator (wavelength of 365 nm) results in photooxidation of 1-thioglycerol (TG) mediated by Os-PVP complex on the surface of graphite electrode at applied potential of 0.31 V vs. Ag/AgCl. A novel immunoassay based on specific enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) combined with the PEC methodology was developed. Having selected the affinity interaction between bovine serum albumine (BSA) with anti-BSA antibody (AB) as a model system, we built the PEC immunoassay for AB. The new assay displays a linear range up to 20 ngmL(-1) and a detection limit (DL) of 2 ngmL(-1) (S/N=3) which is lower 5 times that of the traditional chromogenic ELISA test employing p-nitro-phenyl phosphate (pNPP).
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