Evaluating viscoelastic properties and membrane electrical charges of red blood cells with optical tweezers and cationic quantum dots - applications to β-thalassemia intermedia hemoglobinopathy.

Biomechanical and electrical properties are important to the performance and survival of red blood cells (RBCs) in the microcirculation. This study proposed and explored methodologies based on optical tweezers and cationic quantum dots (QDs) as biophotonic tools to characterize, in a complementary way, viscoelastic properties and membrane electrical charges of RBCs. The methodologies were applied to normal (HbA) and β-thalassemia intermedia (Hbβ) RBCs.

Depletion interactions and modulation of DNA-intercalators binding: Opposite behavior of the "neutral" polymer poly(ethylene-glycol).

In this work we have investigated the role of high molecular weight poly(ethylene-glycol) 8000 (PEG 8000) in modulating the interactions of the DNA molecule with two hydrophobic compounds: Ethidium Bromide (EtBr) and GelRed (GR). Both compounds are DNA intercalators and are used here to mimic the behavior of more complex DNA ligands such as chemotherapeutic drugs and proteins whose domains intercalate DNA. By means of single-molecule stretching experiments, we have been able to show that PEG 8000 strongly shifts the binding equilibrium between the intercalators and the DNA even at very low concentrations (1% in mass).

Characterizing the interaction between DNA and GelRed fluorescent stain.

We have performed single-molecule stretching and dynamic light-scattering (DLS) experiments to characterize the interaction between the DNA molecule and the fluorescent stain GelRed. The results from single-molecule stretching show that the persistence length of DNA-GelRed complexes increases as the ligand concentration increases up to a critical concentration, then decreases for higher concentrations. The contour length of the complexes, on the other hand, increases monotonically as a function of GelRed concentration, suggesting that intercalation is the main binding mechanism.

DNA interaction with Actinomycin D: mechanical measurements reveal the details of the binding data.

We have studied the interaction between the anticancer drug Actinomycin D (ActD) and the DNA molecule by performing single molecule stretching experiments and atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging. From the stretching experiments, we determine how the mechanical properties of the DNA-ActD complexes vary as a function of drug concentration, for a fixed DNA concentration. We have found that the persistence lengths of the complexes formed behave non-monotonically: at low concentrations of ActD they are more flexible than the bare DNA molecule and become stiffer at higher concentrations.

DNA-cisplatin interaction studied with single molecule stretching experiments.

By performing single molecule stretching experiments with optical tweezers, we have studied the changes in the mechanical properties of DNA-cisplatin complexes as a function of some variables of interest such as the drug diffusion time and concentration in the sample. We propose a model to explain the behavior of the persistence length as a function of the drug concentration, extracting the binding data from pure mechanical measurements. Such analysis has allowed us to show that cisplatin binds cooperatively to the DNA molecule.