Interlocked systems in nanomedicine.

The concept of Nanomedicine emerged along with the new millennium, and it is expected to provide solutions to some of modern medicine's unsolved problems. Nanomedicine offers new hopes in several critical areas such as cancer treatment, viral and bacterial infections, medical imaging, tissue regeneration, and theranostics. To explore all these applications, a wide variety of nanomaterials have been developed which include liposomes, dendrimers, nanohydrogels and polymeric, metallic and inorganic nanoparticles.

Aerosolized antimicrobial agents based on degradable dextran nanoparticles loaded with silver carbene complexes.

Degradable acetalated dextran (Ac-DEX) nanoparticles were prepared and loaded with a hydrophobic silver carbene complex (SCC) by a single-emulsion process. The resulting particles were characterized for morphology and size distribution using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The average particle size and particle size distribution were found to be a function of the ratio of the organic phase to the surfactant containing aqueous phase with a 1:5 volume ratio of Ac-DEX CH(2)Cl(2) (organic):PBS (aqueous) being optimal for the formulation of nanoparticles with an average size of 100 ± 40 nm and a low polydispersity.

Polyphosphonium polymers for siRNA delivery: an efficient and nontoxic alternative to polyammonium carriers.

A water-soluble polyphosphonium polymer was synthesized and directly compared with its ammonium analog in terms of siRNA delivery. The triethylphosphonium polymer shows transfection efficiency up to 65% with 100% cell viability, whereas the best result obtained for the ammonium analog reaches only 25% transfection with 85% cell viability. Moreover, the nature of the alkyl substituents on the phosphonium cations is shown to have an important influence on the transfection efficiency and toxicity of the polyplexes.