Ottawa, ON -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/16/2020 -- The onset of nanotechnology has been of great benefit to the medical field. Lipid nanoparticles have been used as delivery carriers for drugs and imaging agents owing to their excellent biological properties. Phospholipids are the key building blocks for the success of liposomes in drug delivery applications. Unfortunately, the transformation of liposomes from singular drug delivery vehicles into multimodal nanoplatforms has focused on the "all-in-one" approach which poses a great challenge in the clinical translation. To address those hurdles in clinical translation Dr. Zheng's lab focuses on the "one-for-all" approach, in which a single nanoparticle building block exhibits multifunctionality upon self-assembly into nanoparticles. As such, aza-boron dipyrromethenes (aza-BODIPYs), a class of near-infrared fluorophores that have attracted significant interest in cancer imaging, were being investigated by the group.

Nanotechnology has been envisioned as an effective tool for resolving the systemic delivery issues of aza-BODIPYs to the tumor site and have instigated the development of new aza-BODIPY nanoparticles for optical imaging applications. In a recent publication featured in Medicine Innovates and selected as a key scientific article, scientists from University of Toronto: Dr. Miffy Cheng, Dr. Kara Harmatys, Danielle Charron, and Dr. Juan Chen, led by Professor Gang Zheng, reported the synthesis of a new aza-BODIPY-lipid building block and its self-assembly into liposome nanoparticles. Specifically, the optical stability of J-aggregated aza-BODIPY-lipid in liposomes was investigated and its feasibility in in vivo applications was also demonstrated. This work can be found in the article Stable J-Aggregation of an aza-BODIPY-Lipid in a Liposome for Optical Cancer Imaging" published in the journal, Angewandte Chemie.

The BODIPYsome is a highly biocompatible nanocarrier exhibiting both optical and colloidal stability. The optical stability of the BODIPYsome was attributed to J-dimerization within the nanostructure, offering unique near-infrared photo-properties in both absorption and fluorescence. BODIPYsomes with cholesterol maintained a relatively high extinction coefficient and high fluorescence quenching with good colloidal stability. This showed the effectiveness of the BODIPYsome, when used in its intact form, as a photoacoustic agent, while the disrupted nanostructure showed excellent near-infrared fluorescence in properties for both in vitro and in vivo applications. The BODIPYsome in healthy mice showed a long blood circulation half-life of 10.56 hours with excellent biocompatibility that was validated from its acute toxicity studies.

Overall, the study demonstrated successful synthesis of a novel aza-BODIPY-lipid building block and its self-assembly into BODIPYsome nanostructures with stable J-aggregation. Based on the results showcasing the interesting properties of the optical imaging agents, Professor Gang Zheng, in a statement to Medicine Innovates, observed that the novelty of the BODIPYsome will pave way for the development of new building blocks for effective design of optically stable biophotonic imaging agents.

The story has been featured first at Medicine Innovates : https://medicineinnovates.com/stable-j-aggregation-aza-bodipy-lipid-liposome-optical-cancer-imaging/

About Medicine Innovates
Medicine Innovates is the leading source of trustworthy and timely medical research news. It continues to feature the very best in research paper in medicine breakthroughs, with articles that consistently rank among the most cited in the world. Medicine Innovates select research papers that are most influential in their biomedical field and that will significantly advance scientific understanding. Selected papers tend to present novel and broadly important data, or concepts.

Media Contact

Dr. Robert Miller
Medicine Innovates
Address: 38 Auriga Drive, Suite 225. Ottawa, ON K2E 8A5, Canada
Business email: Robert.miller@medicineinnovates.com
https://medicineinnovates.com

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm

Ottawa, ON -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/19/2020 -- Studies have shown that for several viruses, multiple viral genes are involved in the regulation of the innate immune response that is mediated by the interferon response. This response is a major determinant of the pathogenicity of viruses; it also contributes to the ability of certain viruses to distinguish between cancer cells and parental cells. Some researchers have stated that an in-depth understanding of this determinant is quintessential to the conduction of epidemiological surveillance as well as the successful optimization and selection of appropriate viral strains for the treatment of different types of cancer.

In view of this, virologists have begun to explore the possible use of oncolytic viruses (such as mammalian orthoreovirus) for the treatment of cancer. Mammalian orthoreovirus is considered to be an appropriate oncolytic virus for cancer treatment because it is non-pathogenic to humans. However, previous studies have indicated the possible emergence of novel mammalian orthoreovirus strains that may be pathogenic to humans. Moreover, interferon-mediated immune response may be involved in the emergence of pathogenic viral strains. These possibilities necessitate the conduction of further research studies to fully understand the viral determinants that regulate the induction of interferon response and the susceptibility of different viruses to this response.

In a recent publication featured in Medicine Innovates and selected as a key scientific article, scientists at University of Montreal Delphine Lanoie, Stephanie Cote, Emmanuelle Degeorges and led by professor Guy Lemay from the Department of Microbiology demonstrated that the single mutation of the S1 gene is solely responsible for increased interferon sensitivity in a mammalian orthoreovirus mutant previously selected in Vero cells that are deficient in the interferon response. The authors used a combination of whole-genome sequencing and reverse genetics techniques to identify the unique mutation that occurred in the S1 gene that resulted in increased interferon sensitivity in this virus compared to its parental wild-type counterpart.

The research team observed that the rescued Vero-cell-adapted virus (VeroAV) induced a similarly low amount of interferon as the control rescued wild-type virus. However, the rescued VeroAV was a hundred fold more sensitive compared to the wild-type.

The researchers also reported that introducing the VeroAV M1, M2 or M3 gene into the wild-type background from which the VeroAV was initially derived had no effect on the interferon sensitivity. Whereas, the sole introduction of VeroAV S1 and M2 resulted in a virus that is as sensitive as the rescued VeroAV. The other five viral genes were identical between the two viruses. Moreover, they observed that the substitution of Q78P of ?1 (N59H in ?1s) in the S1 gene was required to fully reconstitute the interferon sensitivity of the rescued VeroAV, while complete knockout of ?1s expression also resulted in interferon sensitivity.

The findings of Professor Guy Lemay and his research team provided compelling evidence that the mutation of the S1 gene in the rescued VeroAV is solely responsible for increased interferon sensitivity in the virus. They also suggest a novel function of ?1s in the control of interferon sensitivity. These findings are important and could lead to further studies on the applications of viruses as potential oncolytic agents and the development of better adapted viruses as effective treatment solutions to different types of cancer.

The story has been featured first at Medicine Innovates:
https://medicineinnovates.com/reovirus-one-amino-acid-change-everything/

About Medicine Innovates
Medicine Innovates is the leading source of trustworthy and timely medical research news. It continues to feature the very best in research paper in medicine breakthroughs, with articles that consistently rank among the most cited in the world. Medicine Innovates select research papers that are most influential in their biomedical field and that will significantly advance scientific understanding. Selected papers tend to present novel and broadly important data, or concepts.

Contact

Dr. Robert Miller
Medicine Innovates
https://medicineinnovates.com

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/release-3.htm