Optical Chemical Nanosensors in Clinical Applications

2013 ◽  
Vol 334-335 ◽  
pp. 387-396
Author(s):  
Matejka Turel ◽  
Tinkara Mastnak ◽  
Aleksandra Lobnik

Because of their size and versatile chemistry, nanomaterials represent today powerful tools for (bio) sensing applications. Various types of nanomaterials have proven to be practical, not only for the determination of clinically relevant parameters, but also for diagnostics, drug delivery and treatment of diseases (e.g. cancer). In this short review, types of nanomaterials used in medical applications are briefly described along with some of their applications where the nanomaterials optical properties can be exploited. The question of the toxicity of nanomaterials and the issue of future trends are also raised.

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 119-130
Author(s):  
P V Swamy ◽  
Ch Sucharitha ◽  
G Surendra Babu

Colloidal particulate carrier systems are the systems which carry particulates in a nanometre size. These systems are substantially effective for transportation and distribution of variety of loaded drugs to desired site and increase efficacy and decrease toxicity, to provide therapeutic activity in a controlled manner for a prolonged period of time. One such new emerging colloidal systems is proniosomes which has capacity to improve the bioavailability and also permeation of drugs across the stratum corneum to provide a controlled release action and reduce toxic effects associated with drugs. These are the dry formulations of water-soluble non-ionic surfactant coated carrier systems which immediately on hydration form niosomes. They have the capacity to overcome the various problems associated with niosomes and liposomes, like instability, transportation, distribution, storage and dosing. They offer versatile drug delivery concept for both hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs. They have the capacity to deliver drugs effectively through different routes at specific site to achieve controlled release action. This review concentrates on preparation, characterization, components, structure, types, evaluation parameters, proniosomes in drug delivery and targeting, toxicities associated with proniosomes, proniosomes versus niosomes, clinical applications, mechanism of vesicle formation in proniosomes and future trends associated with it. Also, drug delivery via different routes, such as oral, parenteral, topical and transdermal, ocular, vaginal, mucosal, pulmonary and intranasal were discussed.


Author(s):  
A. LeFurgey ◽  
P. Ingram ◽  
L.J. Mandel

For quantitative determination of subcellular Ca distribution by electron probe x-ray microanalysis, decreasing (and/or eliminating) the K content of the cell maximizes the ability to accurately separate the overlapping K Kß and Ca Kα peaks in the x-ray spectra. For example, rubidium has been effectively substituted for potassium in smooth muscle cells, thus giving an improvement in calcium measurements. Ouabain, a cardiac glycoside widely used in experimental and clinical applications, inhibits Na-K ATPase at the cell membrane and thus alters the cytoplasmic ion (Na,K) content of target cells. In epithelial cells primarily involved in active transport, such as the proximal tubule of the rabbit kidney, ouabain rapidly (t1/2= 2 mins) causes a decrease2 in intracellular K, but does not change intracellular total or free Ca for up to 30 mins. In the present study we have taken advantage of this effect of ouabain to determine the mitochondrial and cytoplasmic Ca content in freeze-dried cryosections of kidney proximal tubule by electron probe x-ray microanalysis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
busenur Aslanoglu ◽  
Ilya Yakavets ◽  
Vladimir Zorin ◽  
Henri-Pierre Lassalle ◽  
Francesca Ingrosso ◽  
...  

Computational tools have been used to study the photophysical and photochemical features of photosensitizers in photodynamic therapy (PDT) –a minimally invasive, less aggressive alternative for cancer treatment. PDT is mainly based by the activation of molecular oxygen through the action of a photoexcited sensitizer (photosensitizer). Temoporfin, widely known as mTHPC, is a second-generation photosensitizer, which produces the cytotoxic singlet oxygen when irradiated with visible light and hence destroys tumor cells. However, the bioavailability of the mostly hydrophobic photosensitizer, and hence its incorporation into the cells, is fundamental to achieve the desired effect on malignant tissues by PDT. In this study, we focus on the optical properties of the temoporfin chromophore in different environments –in <i>vacuo</i>, in solution, encapsulated in drug delivery agents, namely cyclodextrin, and interacting with a lipid bilayer.


2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 843-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiguo Xu ◽  
Shujun Dong ◽  
Yuping Han ◽  
Shuqiang Li ◽  
Yang Liu

Hydrogels, as a class of materials for tissue engineering and drug delivery, have high water content and solid-like mechanical properties. Currently, hydrogels with an antibacterial function are a research hotspot in biomedical field. Many advanced antibacterial hydrogels have been developed, each possessing unique qualities, namely high water swellability, high oxygen permeability, improved biocompatibility, ease of loading and releasing drugs and structural diversity. In this article, an overview is provided on the preparation and applications of various antibacterial hydrogels. Furthermore, the prospects in biomedical researches and clinical applications are predicted.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilawar Hassan ◽  
Hadi Bakhsh ◽  
Asif M. Khurram ◽  
Shakeel A. Bhutto ◽  
Nida S. Jalbani ◽  
...  

Background: The optical properties of nanomaterials have evolved enormously with the introduction of nanotechnology. The property of materials to absorb and/or emit specific wavelength has turned them into one of the most favourite candidates to be effectively utilized in different sensing applications e.g organic light emission diodes (OLEDs) sensors, gas sensors, biosensors and fluorescent sensors. These materials have been reported as a sensor in the field of tissue and cell imaging, cancer detection and detection of environmental contaminants etc. Fluorescent nanomaterials are heling in rapid and timely detection of various contaminants that greatly impact the quality of life and food, that is exposed to these contaminants. Later, all the contaminants have been investigated to be most perilous entities that momentously affect the life span of the animals and humans who use those foods which have been contaminated. Objective: In this review, we will discuss about various methods and approaches to synthesize the fluorescent nanoparticles and quantum dots (QDs) and their applications in various fields. The application will include the detection of various environmental contaminants and bio-medical applications. We will discuss the possible mode of action of the nanoparticles when used as sensor for the environmental contaminants as well as the surface modification of some fluorescent nanomaterials with anti-body and enzyme for specific detection in animal kingdom. We will also describe some RAMAN based sensors as well as some optical sensing-based nanosensors. Conclusion: Nanotechnology has enabled to play with the size, shape and morphology of materials in the nanoscale. The physical, chemical and optical properties of materials change dramatically when they are reduced to nanoscale. The optical properties can become choosy in terms of emission or absorption of wavelength in the size range and can result in production of very sensitive optical sensor. The results show that the use of fluorescent nanomaterials for the sensing purposes are helping a great deal in the sensing field.


Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1768
Author(s):  
Miroslav Rievaj ◽  
Eva Culková ◽  
Damiána Šandorová ◽  
Zuzana Lukáčová-Chomisteková ◽  
Renata Bellová ◽  
...  

This short review deals with the properties and significance of the determination of selenium, which is in trace amounts an essential element for animals and humans, but toxic at high concentrations. It may cause oxidative stress in cells, which leads to the chronic disease called selenosis. Several analytical techniques have been developed for its detection, but electroanalytical methods are advantageous due to simple sample preparation, speed of analysis and high sensitivity of measurements, especially in the case of stripping voltammetry very low detection limits even in picomoles per liter can be reached. A variety of working electrodes based on mercury, carbon, silver, platinum and gold materials were applied to the analysis of selenium in various samples. Only selenium in oxidation state + IV is electroactive therefore the most of voltammetric determinations are devoted to it. However, it is possible to detect also other forms of selenium by indirect electrochemistry approach.


Photonics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Najat Andam ◽  
Siham Refki ◽  
Hidekazu Ishitobi ◽  
Yasushi Inouye ◽  
Zouheir Sekkat

The determination of optical constants (i.e., real and imaginary parts of the complex refractive index (nc) and thickness (d)) of ultrathin films is often required in photonics. It may be done by using, for example, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) spectroscopy combined with either profilometry or atomic force microscopy (AFM). SPR yields the optical thickness (i.e., the product of nc and d) of the film, while profilometry and AFM yield its thickness, thereby allowing for the separate determination of nc and d. In this paper, we use SPR and profilometry to determine the complex refractive index of very thin (i.e., 58 nm) films of dye-doped polymers at different dye/polymer concentrations (a feature which constitutes the originality of this work), and we compare the SPR results with those obtained by using spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements performed on the same samples. To determine the optical properties of our film samples by ellipsometry, we used, for the theoretical fits to experimental data, Bruggeman’s effective medium model for the dye/polymer, assumed as a composite material, and the Lorentz model for dye absorption. We found an excellent agreement between the results obtained by SPR and ellipsometry, confirming that SPR is appropriate for measuring the optical properties of very thin coatings at a single light frequency, given that it is simpler in operation and data analysis than spectroscopic ellipsometry.


The Analyst ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghazaleh Jamalipour Soufi ◽  
Siavash Iravani ◽  
Rajender S Varma

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have numerous applications in sensing field, the detection/recognition of virus, the structure determination of proteins, drug delivery, artificial/biomimetic antibodies, drug discovery, and cell culturing. There are...


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