13 documents found, page 1 of 2
Antimicrobial peptide-grafted PLGA-PEG nanoparticles to fight bacterial wound i...
Ramôa, AM; Campos, F; Moreira, L; Teixeira, C; Leiro, V; Gomes, P; Neves, J; Martins, MCL; Monteiro, CWound infection treatment with antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) is still not a reality, due to the loss of activity in vivo. Unlike the conventional strategy of encapsulating AMPs on nanoparticles (NPs) leaving activity dependent on the release profile, this work explores AMP grafting to poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide)-polyethylene glycol NPs (PLGA-PEG NPs), whereby AMP exposition, infection targeting and immediate...
Enhancement of hMSC In Vitro Proliferation by Surface Immobilization of a Hepar...
Cimino, M; Parreira, P; Leiro, V; Sousa, A; Gonçalves, RM; Barrias, CC; Martins, MCLThe use of human Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hMSC) as therapeutic agents for advanced clinical therapies relies on their in vitro expansion. Over the last years, several efforts have been made to optimize hMSC culture protocols, namely by mimicking the cell physiological microenvironment, which strongly relies on signals provided by the extracellular matrix (ECM). ECM glycosaminoglycans, such as heparan-sulfate, se...
Thiol-Norbornene Photoclick Chemistry for Grafting Antimicrobial Peptides onto ...
Alves, PM; Pereira, RF; Costa, B; Tassi, N; Teixeira, C; Leiro, V; Monteiro, C; Gomes, P; Costa, F; Martins, MCLCovalent conjugation of antimicrobial peptides (AMP) is considered an effective approach to overcome their potential degradation in vivo. As the high cost of AMP-based therapies is one of the major hurdles towards their clinical application, it is urgently needed to explore high yield reactions. Herein, the highly efficient thiol-norbornene photoclick chemistry (TNPC) was explored for AMP grafting onto chitosan...
Breaking Barriers: Bioinspired Strategies for Targeted Neuronal Delivery to the...
Spencer, AP; Torrado, M; Custódio, B; Silva-Reis, SC; Santos, S; Leiro, V; Pêgo, APCentral nervous system (CNS) disorders encompass a vast spectrum of pathological conditions and represent a growing concern worldwide. Despite the high social and clinical interest in trying to solve these pathologies, there are many challenges to bridge in order to achieve an effective therapy. One of the main obstacles to advancements in this field that has hampered many of the therapeutic strategies proposed...
PAMAM dendrimers: blood-brain barrier transport and neuronal uptake after focal...
Santos, SD; Xavier, M; Leite, D; Moreira, D; Custódio, B; Torrado, M; Castro, R; Leiro, V; Rodrigues, J; Tomás, H; Pêgo, APDrug delivery to the central nervous system is restricted by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). However, with the onset of stroke, the BBB becomes leaky, providing a window of opportunity to passively target the brain. Here, cationic poly(amido amine) (PAMAM) dendrimers of different generations were functionalized with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) to reduce cytotoxicity and prolong blood circulation half-life, aimin...
Fine tuning neuronal targeting of nanoparticles by adjusting the ligand graftin...
Gomes, CP; Leiro, V; Lopes, CD; Spencer, AP; Pêgo, APPoly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) has been extensively used to coat the surface of nanocarriers to improve their physicochemical properties and allow the grafting of targeting moieties. Still, to date there is no common agreement on the ideal PEG coverage-density or length to be used for optimum vector performance. In this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of both PEG density and length on the vectoring capac...
Delivering siRNA with dendrimers: In vivo applications
Leiro, V; Santos, SD; Pêgo, APOver the last decades, gene therapy has emerged as a pioneering therapeutic approach to treat or prevent several diseases. Among the explored strategies, the short-term silencing of protein coding genes mediated by siRNAs has a good therapeutic potential in a clinical setting. However, the widespread use of siRNA will require the development of clinically suitable, safe and effective vehicles with the ability t...
Biodegradable PEG-dendritic block copolymers: Synthesis and biofunctionality as...
Leiro, V; Garcia, JP; Moreno, PM; Spencer, AP; Fernandez-Villamarin, M; Riguera, R; Fernandez-Megia, E; Pêgo, APOne important drawback of most of the currently used dendrimers for biomedical applications is their high stability under physiological conditions that can result in cytotoxicity or complications induced by the accumulation of non-degradable synthetic materials in the organism. Particularly in the gene therapy field, vector stability can further hinder the intracellular release of the nucleic acid from the dend...
Dendrimers as Powerful Building Blocks in Central Nervous System Disease: Heade...
Leiro, V; Santos, SD; Lopes, C; Pêgo, APDendrimers have emerged as a powerful class of nanomaterials in the nanomedicine field due to their unique structural features: globular, well-defined, highly branched and controllable structure, nanosize-scale, low polydispersity, and the presence of several terminal groups that can be functionalized with different ligands simulating the multivalency present in different biological systems. Although in its inf...
A high-throughput bioimaging study to assess the impact of chitosan-based nanop...
Gomes, C; Varela-Moreira, A; Leiro, V; Lopes, C; Moreno, PM; Gomez-Lazaro, M; Pêgo, APBy using imaging flow cytometry as a powerful statistical high-throughput technique we investigated the impact of degradation on the biological performance of trimethyl chitosan (TMC)-based nanoparticles (NPs). In order to achieve high transfection efficiencies, a precise balance between NP stability and degradation must occur. We altered the biodegradation rate of the TMC NPs by varying the degree of acetylati...