Preparation of a Thermosensitive Gel Composed of a mPEG-PLGA-PLL-cRGD Nanodrug Delivery System for Pancreatic Tumor Therapy.

It is hypothesized that a gel (NP-Gel) composed of thermosensitive gel (Gel) and nanoparticles (NP) can prolong drug release time and overcome the drug resistance of pancreatic tumor cells. Paclitaxel (PTX)-loaded monomethoxy (polyethylene glycol)-poly(d,l-lactide-co-glycolide)-poly(l-lysine)-cyclic peptide (arginine-glycine-aspartic-glutamic-valine acid) (mPEG-PLGA-PLL-cRGD) NP and NP-Gel were designed, optimized, and characterized using dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, high efficiency liquid chromatography, and rheological analyses. Aspc-1/PTX cell was used in a cell uptake test.

Structural changes of purple membrane and bacteriorhodopsin during its denaturation induced by high pH.

Bacteriorhodopsin (bR) trimers naturally form two-dimensional hexagonal crystals in purple membrane (PM), which make it very stable. However, the dnaturation of bR was found to occur during a very narrow pH range when the pH was increased above 12.0, as indicated by inactivation of the photochemical cycle observed by flash photolysis kinetic spectra.

Neuronal tau induces DNA conformational changes observed by atomic force microscopy.

Neuronal tau associates with chromosome scaffold and localizes in the nuclear and the nucleolar organization regions in neuronal and some non-neuronal cells. Observing the interaction of neuronal tau with DNA under AFM shows that tau binds to DNA as a monomer, and tau-DNA complex forms a beads-on-a-string structure when the mass ratio is 1:10 (molar ratio of tau/DNA approximately 1:700 bp). A beads-on-a-coil structure, in which tau is as polymers, will appear when the mass ratio is up to 1:5 (molar ratio of tau/DNA approximately 1:350 bp).