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Toxicol Lett 2022 Aug 10. Epub 2022 Aug 10.

Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors at the Technical University of Dortmund (IfADo), Ardeystrasse 67, 44139, Dortmund, Germany. Electronic address:

The accumulation of lipid droplets in hepatocytes is a key feature of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) and can be induced by a subset of hepatotoxic compounds. In the present study, we optimized and evaluated an in vitro technique based on the fluorescent dye Nile Red, further named Nile Red assay to quantify lipid droplets induced by the exposure to chemicals. The Nile Red assay and a cytotoxicity test (CTB assay) were then performed on cells exposed concentration-dependently to 60 different compounds. Read More

Polymers (Basel) 2022 Jul 31;14(15). Epub 2022 Jul 31.

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Centre for NanoScience Research, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H4B 1R6, Canada.

Drug nanoencapsulation increases the availability, pharmacokinetics, and concentration efficiency for therapeutic regimes. Azobenzene light-responsive molecules experience a hydrophobicity change from a polar to an apolar tendency by photoisomerization upon UV irradiation. Polymeric photoresponse nanoparticles (PPNPs) based on azobenzene compounds and biopolymers such as chitosan derivatives show prospects of photodelivering drugs into cells with accelerated kinetics, enhancing their therapeutic effect. Read More

Animals (Basel) 2022 Aug 4;12(15). Epub 2022 Aug 4.

Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) & Department of Chemistry, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.

Companion animals living in urban areas are exposed to environmental contaminants, which may include microplastics. A preliminary study was conducted by collecting postmortem samples from the internal tissue (lungs, ileum, liver, kidney, and blood clots) of 25 dogs () and 24 cats () living in an urban environment in Porto metropolitan area, Portugal. Suspected microplastics were found in 80 samples from 35 animals (18 cats and 17 dogs), often occurring in more than one tissue of the same animal (71. Read More

Methods Appl Fluoresc 2022 Aug 8. Epub 2022 Aug 8.

Department of Chemical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Navy Nagar Colaba, Mumbai, 400005, INDIA.

Small lipid vesicles (with diameter ≤ 100nm) with their highly curved membranes comprise a special class of biological lipid bilayers. The mechanical properties of such membranes are critical for their function, e.g. Read More

Inorg Chem 2022 Aug 8. Epub 2022 Aug 8.

Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes, Shanghai Frontiers Science Center of Molecule Intelligent Syntheses, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai 200062, P. R. China.

Over the past few decades, the design and construction of high-efficiency artificial light-harvesting systems (LHSs) involving multistep fluorescence-resonance energy transfer (FRET) processes have gradually received considerable attention within wide fields ranging from supramolecular chemistry to chemical biology and even materials science. Herein, through coordination-driven self-assembly, a novel tetragonal prismatic metallacage featuring a FRET process using tetraphenylethene (TPE) units as donors and BODIPY units as acceptors has been conveniently synthesized. Subsequently, taking advantage of supramolecular hydrophobic interactions, a promising artificial LHS involving two-step FRET processes from TPE to BODIPY and then to Nile Red (NiR) has been successfully fabricated in an aqueous solution using the FRET-featuring metallacage, NiR, and an amphiphilic polymer (mPEG-DSPE). Read More