Synthesis of taurine–fluorescein conjugate and evaluation of its retina-targeted efficiency in vitro

Abstract

In this work, retinal penetration of fluorescein was achieved in vitro by covalent attachment of taurine to fluorescein, yielding the F–Tau conjugate. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) were used to confirm the successful synthesis of F–Tau. The cellular uptake of F–Tau in adult retinal pigment epithelial cells (ARPE-19) and human retinal microvascular endothelial cells (hRMECs) was visualized via confocal scanning microscopy. The results indicated an improvement of solubility and a reduction of logP of F–Tau compared with fluorescein. As compared with fluorescein, F–Tau showed little toxicity, and was retained longer by cells in uptake experiments. F–Tau also displayed higher transepithelial permeabilities than fluorescein in ARPE-19 and hRMECs monolayer cells (P<0.05). These results showed that taurine may be a useful ligand for targeting small-molecule hydrophobic pharmaceuticals into the retina.

Synthesis, characterization and in vivo drug delivery study of a biodegradable nano-structured molecularly imprinted polymer based on cross-linker of fructose

“…MIPs are highly efficient artificially fabricated receptors which have already found more widespread potential to assist at various field of application such as analytical separation [14] , sensors and biosensor systems [11,15], enantioseparation [16], enzyme like catalysts [17], capillary electrophoresis [18], and many other areas due to their outstanding advantages such as chemical and physical robustness [19], long shelf life [20], reusability [21], predesigned selectivity [22], tailor-made recognition [23], low cost, ease of preparation [24] and so on. MIPs have demonstrated significant extraction capacity due to providing accessibility to recognition sites, fast mass transferring and relatively complete removal of template [25].…”