Safe subdural administration and retention of a neurotrophin-3-delivering hydrogel in a rat model of spinal cord injury.

Neurotrophic growth factor (GF) loaded hydrogels have shown promise as a treatment approach for spinal cord injury (SCI). However, SCI presents complex challenges for the direct administration of treatment due to the spinal cord's intricate anatomy and highly sensitive environment. Many current hydrogel administration approaches overlook this complexity, limiting their translational potential.

Encapsulation of the growth factor neurotrophin-3 in heparinised poloxamer hydrogel stabilises bioactivity and provides sustained release.

Poloxamer-based hydrogels show promise to stabilise and sustain the delivery of growth factors in tissue engineering applications, such as following spinal cord injury. Typically, growth factors such as neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) degrade rapidly in solution. Similarly, poloxamer hydrogels also degrade readily and are, therefore, only capable of sustaining the release of a payload over a small number of days.

Translating ultrasound-mediated drug delivery technologies for CNS applications.

Ultrasound enhances drug delivery into the central nervous system (CNS) by opening barriers between the blood and CNS and by triggering release of drugs from carriers. A key challenge in translating setups from in vitro to in vivo settings is achieving equivalent acoustic energy delivery. Multiple devices have now been demonstrated to focus ultrasound to the brain, with concepts emerging to also target the spinal cord.

Investigating the influence of ultrasound parameters on ibuprofen drug release from hydrogels.

Hydrogels are promising ultrasound-responsive drug delivery systems. In this study, we investigated how different ultrasound parameters affected drug release and structural integrity of self-healing hydrogels composed of alginate or poloxamers. The effects of amplitude and duty cycle at low frequency (24 kHz) ultrasound stimulation were first investigated using alginate hydrogels at 2% w/v and 2.

The Effect of Manufacturer on the Compounding of Omeprazole Suspensions and Their Stability Assessment.

In New Zealand, there are no liquid formulations of omeprazole commercially available, therefore suspensions must be extemporaneously compounded from solid dosage forms for patients with swallowing difficulties. The funding for solid dosage forms of omeprazole changes frequently, often every one to two years, without consideration of the impact this may have when extemporaneously compounded liquid dosage forms are required. This study examined suspensions compounded from various solid dosage forms of omeprazole with the purpose of identifying suitable quality formulations and evaluating their chemical and physical stability.

Effect of individual SCFA on the epithelial barrier of sheep rumen under physiological and acidotic luminal pH conditions.

The objective of this study was to investigate whether individual short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) have a different potential to either regulate the formation of the ruminal epithelial barrier (REB) at physiological pH or to damage the REB at acidotic ruminal pH. Ruminal epithelia of sheep were incubated in Ussing chambers on their mucosal side in buffered solutions (pH 6.1 or 5.

Epithelial barrier dysfunction in lymphocytic colitis through cytokine-dependent internalization of claudin-5 and -8.

Background: Watery diarrhea is the cardinal symptom of lymphocytic colitis (LC). We have previously shown that colonic Na malabsorption is one of the major pathologic alterations of LC and found evidence for an epithelial barrier defect. On these grounds, this study aimed to identify the inherent mechanisms of this epithelial barrier dysfunction and its regulatory features.