Publications by authors named "Luis C Malacarne"

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the antifungal properties of hypericin when nanoencapsulated in P123 copolymer micelles, focusing on its photodynamic therapy (PDT) mechanisms.
  • Key methods include antifungal susceptibility tests to determine minimum fungicidal concentration, time-kill curves, and flow cytometry to analyze the internalization of the nanoencapsulation and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS).
  • Results indicate that P123-Hyp maintains fungistatic activity for up to 24 hours, with evidence of necrotic cell death and disruption of the fungal plasma membrane through the activation of type II PDT pathways.
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The growing interest in using photodynamic therapy for cancer treatment and antimicrobial applications has prompted the search for different classes of dyes. In general, the protocols of these studies are different, making it difficult to compare their efficiency directly. Here, we apply a controlled protocol to analyze the photophysical properties of Erythrosin B, Eosin Y, and Rose Bengal using a set of optical techniques.

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Staphylococcus aureus is a global challenge to the clinical field and food industry. Therefore, the development of antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) has become one of the valuable methods to control this pathogen. The antibacterial activity of photoinactivation by erythrosine (Ery) against S.

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Background: The efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) depends on the combination of light and a photosensitizer for inactivation of microorganisms. However, finding the ideal conditions for the factors involved in this technique is time and cost-consuming. The rotational composite central design (RCCD) is a tool that can be allied with PDT to achieve precise results within a shorter working time.

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Background: Sporothrix brasiliensis is a pathogenic dimorphic fungus that affects humans and animals causing sporotrichosis. The treatment of this disease with conventional antifungals commonly results in therapeutic failures and resistance. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the in vitro effect of curcumin (CUR) mediated by photodynamic therapy (PDT) in its pure state and incorporated into pharmaceutical formulation in gel form, on the filamentous and yeast forms of S.

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Background: Onychomycosis (OM) is a common nail plate disorder caused by dermatophyte molds, yeasts, and non-dermatophyte molds, which use keratin in the nail plate as an energy source. OM is characterized by dyschromia, increased nail thickness, subungual hyperkeratosis, and onychodystrophy, and is typically treated with conventional antifungals despite frequent reports of toxicity, fungal resistance, and OM recurrence. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with hypericin (Hyp) as a photosensitizer (PS) stands out as a promising therapeutic modality.

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Chronic wound healing represents an impactful financial burden on healthcare systems. In this context, the use of natural products as an alternative therapy reduces costs and maintains effectiveness. Phytotherapeutic gels applied in photodynamic therapy (PDT) have been developed to act as topical healing medicines and antibiotics.

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Background: Outbreaks related to food contamination by resistant microorganisms is a worldwide concern that, motivates industries and research institutions to search for affordable solutions. Among the solutions that have been proposed, Photodynamic Inactivation (PDI) of microorganisms has gained prominence, among other aspects, because it is easy to apply and does not generate microbial resistance.

Methods: In this study, we used the association between curcumin solubilized with Tween and light in the photodynamic inactivation process, using light-emitting diodes with a wavelength of 430 nm for decontamination S.

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Considering the multifaceted and increasing application of photodynamic therapy (PDT), in recent years the antimicrobial employment of this therapy has been highlighted, because of the antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasitic, and antifungal activities that have already been demonstrated. In this context, research focussed on antimycological action, especially for treatment of superficial infections, presents promising growth due to the characteristics of these infections that facilitate PDT application as new therapeutic options are needed in the field of medical mycology. Among the more than one hundred classes of photosensitizers the antifungal action of hypericin (Hyp) stands out due to its ability to permeate the lipid membrane and accumulate in different cytoplasmic organelles of eukaryotic cells.

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Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is a powerful technique for the treatment of cancer and non-cancerous diseases. The precise PDT treatment protocol definition must consider the performance difference between in vitroand in vivoapplications. This also occurs in other biological studies, and to partially overcome this difficulty, the simulated body fluids are generally applied as a prior understanding of the particularities of the different systems.

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The mode-mismatched dual-beam thermal lens technique is widely applied in the characterization of optical and thermo-physical properties of solids and liquids. The technique has also been used to investigate transient acoustic waves induced by pulsed laser excitation at the nanosecond time scale. In this paper, we developed a semi-analytical model to describe the transient acoustic wave that allows a fitting procedure to get the physical properties of fluid samples.

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Objective: To evaluate the early stages of the setting process of chemically activated restorative glass-ionomer cements (GICs).

Material And Methods: Five GICs were evaluated ( = 5): Equia Forte (GC), Equia Forte HT (GC), Ketac Universal (3M ESPE), Maxxion R (FGM) and Riva Self Cure (SDI) by Thermography, Fourier Transform Infrared Attenuated Total Reflectance Spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR) and Gillmore needle indentation mechanical testing. The FTIR-ATR spectra showed the formation of metal carboxylates within the cements and enabled the stabilization time (ST) to be determined and the thermographic camera measured the temperature field images in the sample.

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The antifungal application of photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been widely explored. According to superficial nature of tinea capitis and the facility of application of light sources, the use of nanoencapsulated hypericin in P-123 associated with PDT (P123-Hy-PDT) has been a poweful tool to treat this pathology. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of P123-Hy-PDT against planktonic cells and in a murine model of dermatophytosis caused by Microsporum canis.

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In this study we report a novel theranostic lipid-polymer liposome, obtained from DPPC and the triblock copolymer F127 covalently modified with 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein (CF) for photodynamic applications. Due to the presence of F127, small unilamellar vesicle (SUV) liposomes were synthesized by a simple and fast thin-film hydration method without the need for an extrusion process. The vesicles have around 100 nm, low polydispersity and superb solution stability.

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This work aimed to investigate and compare the composition and the physicochemical properties of 18 different sources of edible vegetable oils. A systematic study on the correlation between composition and physical properties was performed using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy and fatty acid chromatographic analysis. Principal component analysis of FTIR spectra is performed to classify edible oils concerning their physical properties.

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Laser-induced wavefront distortion is detectable by several techniques based on the photothermal effect. The effect is probed by monitoring the phase shift caused by the bulging of the heated area, the photoelastic effects, and the spatial distribution of the refractive index within the sample and in the fluid surrounding it. A simple analytical solution for the wavefront distortion was only possible for low absorbing materials, with the assumption that the stresses obey either the thin-disk or the long-rod type distributions.

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We use the thermal lens technique in the nanosecond time scale to describe the acoustic wave effect in liquids and the corresponding correlation with the speed of sound in the fluid, volumetric thermal expansion, and piezo-optic coefficient. These physical properties are found to be directly correlated to the anomalous effects observed in the transients at the nanosecond time scale, where acoustic waves dominate the thermal lens signal inducing an oscillating transient. Our results suggest the application of the thermal lens to study the generation and the detection of thermo-acoustic waves in liquids, which makes this method interesting for all-optoacoustic ultrasound detection and imaging.

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Hypericin (Hyp) is a natural compound with interesting photophysical and pharmacological properties, which has been used in photodynamic therapy and photodynamic inactivation of microorganisms. Its synthesis is based on a series of chemical processes that ends with a light-drug interaction by the photoconversion of protohypericin (pHyp) to Hyp. Although this photosensitizer is used in a variety of medical applications, the photophysical and photochemical mechanisms involved in the final step related to the photo production of Hyp are not completely understood at the molecular level.

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We applied the open photoacoustic cell method operating at high frequency as an efficient and highly precise tool for the measurement of thermal properties of rubberized two-layer systems. The heat-coupling between the two layers is treated using the analogy between thermal and electrical resistances widely used in heat transfer problems. The thermal resistance between the two layers is considered effective and the problem is decoupled for each layer.

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Recent improvements in the modeling of photo-induced thermo-optical-mechanical effects have broadened the application of photothermal techniques to a large class of solids and fluids. During laser excitation, changes in optical reflectivity due to temperature variation may affect the photothermal signal. In this study, the influence of the reflectivity change due to heating is analyzed for two pump-probe photothermal techniques, thermal lens and thermal mirror.

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We induce nanometer-scale surface deformation by exploiting momentum conservation of the interaction between laser light and dielectric liquids. The effect of radiation force at the air-liquid interface is quantitatively assessed for fluids with different density, viscosity and surface tension. The imparted pressure on the liquids by continuous or pulsed laser light excitation is fully described by the Helmholtz electromagnetic force density.

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An adaptive spatial filter is used as an optical novelty filter to detect photothermal mirror (PM) signals in high absorbing materials using continuous wave laser excitation. The optical novelty filter uses an optical beam-fanning limiter based on single domain barium titanate (BaTiO3), cut and poled 45° relative to the c-axis. The optical novelty filter approach relaxes the requirement for high sample surface smoothness because the effect aperture adapts to the surface, reducing the stationary background from the optical signal and provides a means of developing the photothermal mirror signal.

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Strong light absorption and high levels of singlet oxygen production indicate erythrosin B as a viable candidate as a photosensitizer in photodynamic therapy or photodynamic inactivation of microorganisms. Under light irradiation, erythrosin B undergoes a photobleaching process that can decrease the production of singlet oxygen. In this paper, we use thermal lens spectroscopy to investigate photobleaching in micellar solutions of erythrosin ester derivatives: methyl, butyl, and decyl esters in low concentrations of non-ionic micellar aqueous solutions.

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We propose a combined thermal lens and thermal mirror method as concurrent photothermal techniques for the physical characterization of polymers. This combined method is used to investigate polymers as a function of temperature from room temperature up to 170 °C. The method permits a direct determination of thermal diffusivity and thermal conductivity.

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The effect of radiation forces at the interface between dielectric materials has been a long-standing debate for over a century. Yet there has been so far only limited experimental verification in complete accordance with the theory. Here we measure the surface deformation at the air-water interface induced by continuous and pulsed laser excitation and match this to rigorous theory of radiation forces.

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