Glioblastoma (GBM), the deadliest type of brain tumor, is currently incurable because of its high recurrence rate after traditional treatments, including surgery to remove the main part of the tumor and radiation and chemotherapy to target residual tumor cells. These treatments fail mainly due to the presence of a cell subpopulation called glioma stem cells (GSCs), which are resistant to radiation and chemotherapy and capable of self-renewal and tumorigenicity. Because Zika virus (ZIKV) has an oncolytic tropism for infecting GSCs, we tested a live attenuated ZIKV vaccine candidate (ZIKV-LAV) for the treatment of human GBM in a human GSC-derived orthotopic model. Our results showed that ZIKV-LAV retained good efficacy against glioblastoma by selectively killing GSCs within the tumor. In addition, ZIKV-LAV exhibited an excellent safety profile upon intracerebral injection into the treated animals. The good balance between the safety of ZIKV-LAV and its efficacy against human GSCs suggests that it is a potential candidate for combination with the current treatment regimen for GBM therapy.
This paper reports on two important results regarding the precipitation polymerization of poly(divinylbenzene) (PDVB) in acetic acid (HAc). (1) Acetic acid is a novel kind of solvent worthy of investigation because it is amphipathic and innoxious. Thus, two kinds of model solvents, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) and n-heptane, were selected to investigate the solvent effect on the particle morphology of PDVB-55 during precipitation polymerization in acetic acid. Monodisperse PDVB-55 microspheres were obtained with an MEK content of 30 vol % and a DVB loading of 2 vol %. Odd-shaped particles were found to almost disappear when MEK was added. For MEK contents up to 90 vol %, space-filling macrogels consisting of small particles with diameters of around 10 nm were obtained. More homocoagulated particles were produced when n-heptane was added, for which concentrations up to 50 vol % gave rise to cauliflower-like particles. Thus, in the acetic acid system, microspheres, pumpkin-like particles, macrogels, and coagulum could be successfully obtained. (2) The preparation of nonpolar PDVB-55 particles could be more predictable. For the first time-based on the regulation of former studies--the regularity of the dispersive term (delta(d)) on the particle morphology for a PDVB precipitation polymerization system was reported. The three-dimensional Hansen solubility parameters were utilized to perfect the regularity of the Hildebrand solubility parameter. Microspheres or particles were formed in the range of moderate delta values for both parameters, i.e., delta = 20.2-24.3 MPa1/2 or delta = 16 MPa1/2. What was even more important, delta(d) was found to be around 15.4 MPa1/2, and delta(h) should be below 13.5 MPa1/2. Cyclohexane, cyclohexanone, n-butyl acetate, and 1,4-dioxane were used to verify this regularity, and positive results were obtained. Stable, uniform, and well-separated PDVB-55 microspheres and particles were produced as a result of interaction forces between oligomers, polymers, and solvent.
We examine the accuracy of dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations of polymers in dilute solutions with hydrodynamic interaction (HI), at the theta point, modeled by setting the DPD conservative interaction between beads to zero. We compare the first normal-mode relaxation time extracted from the DPD simulations with theoretical predictions from a normal-mode analysis for theta chains. We characterize the influence of bead inertia within the coil by a ratio Lm/Rg, where Lm is the ballistic distance over which bead inertia is lost, and Rg is the radius of gyration of the polymer coil, while the HI strength per bead h* is determined by the ratio of bead hydrodynamic radius (rH) to the equilibrium spring length. We show how to adjust h* through the spring length and monomer mass, and how to optimize the accuracy of DPD for fixed h* by increasing the friction coefficient (γ ≥ 9) and by incorporating a nonlinear distance dependence into the frictional interaction. Even with this optimization, DPD simulations exhibit deviations of over 20% from the theoretical normal-mode predictions for high HI strength with h* ≥ 0.20, for chains with as many as 100 beads, which is a larger deviation than is found for Stochastic rotation dynamics simulations for similar chains lengths and values of h*.
The phase behavior of lyotropic rigid-chain liquid crystal polymer was studied by dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) with variations of the solution concentration and temperature. A chain of fused DPD particles was used to represent each mesogenic polymer backbone surrounded with the strongly interacted solvent molecules. The free solvent molecules were modeled as independent DPD particles, where each particle includes a lump of solvent molecules with the volume roughly equal to the solvated polymer segment. The simulation shows that smectic-B (S(B)), smectic-A (S(A)), nematic (N), and isotropic (I) phases exist within certain regions in the temperature and concentration parameter space. The temperature-dependent S(B)∕S(A), S(A)∕N, and N∕I phase transitions occur in the high concentration range. In the intermediate concentration range, the simulation shows coexistence of the anisotropic phases and isotropic phase, where the anisotropic phases can be the S(B), S(A), or N phases. Mole fraction and compositions of the coexisted phases are determined from the simulation, which indicates that concentration of rigid rods in isotropic phase increases as the temperature increases. By fitting the orientational distribution function of the systems, the biphasic coexistence is further confirmed. From the parameter α obtained for the simulation, the distribution of the rigid rods in the two coexistence phases is quantitatively evaluated. By using model and simulation methods developed in this work, the phase diagrams of the lyotropic rigid-chain polymer liquid crystal are obtained. Incorporating the solvent particles in the DPD simulation is critical to predict the phase coexistence and obtain the phase diagrams.
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