Aluminum hydroxide adjuvant diverts the uptake and trafficking of genetically detoxified pertussis toxin to lysosomes in macrophages.

Aluminum salts have been successfully utilized as adjuvants to enhance the immunogenicity of vaccine antigens since the 1930s. However, the cellular mechanisms behind the immune adjuvanticity effect of these materials in antigen-presenting cells are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the uptake and trafficking of aluminum oxy-hydroxide (AlOOH), in RAW 264.

Aggregation of casein micelles by interactions with chitosans: a study by Monte Carlo simulations.

Recently, it was found that the addition of chitosan, a cationic polymer, to whole or skim milk produces the destabilization and coagulation of casein micelles which takes place without modifications in the milk pH or in the stability of most of the whey proteins. In the present work, Monte Carlo simulations are employed to show that the phase separation of casein micelles induced by chitosan can be explained by a depletion mechanism, where an effective attraction between the casein micelles is induced by the presence of chitosan molecules. This interaction is described on the basis of Vrij's model, where the depletion of polymer from the gap between neighboring casein micelles originates an effective attractive interaction that leads to a phase transition.

Low and high molecular weight chitosans interactions with Streptococcus mutans: an in vitro study.

We evaluated the in vitro capacity of high and low molecular weight chitosans (HMWCh and LMWCh) to inhibit the adherence of strains of S. mutans obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC,25175) to artificial saliva-coated hydroxiapatite beads. The effect of these biopolymers was assessed in terms of pH, ionic force, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and antibacterial activity.