Browsing by Author "Ramesan, RM"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Elastin-like recombinamers with acquired functionalities for gene-delivery applications
    (JOURNAL OF BIOMEDICAL MATERIALS RESEARCH PART A, 2015) Pina, MJ; Alex, SM; Arias, FJ; Santos, M; Rodriguez-Cabello, JC; Ramesan, RM; Sharma, CP
    In this work, well-defined elastin-like recombinamers (ELRs) were studied as a choice to the existing nonviral vectors due to their biocompatibility and ease of scale-up. Functional motifs, namely penetratin and LAEL fusogenic peptides were incorporated into a basic ELR sequence, and imidazole groups were subsequently covalently bound obtaining ELRs with new functionalities. Stable polyplexes composed of plasmid DNA and ELRs were formed. A particle size around 200 nm and a zeta potential up to nearly +24 mV made them suitable for gene delivery purposes. Additionally, viability and transfection assays with C6 rat glioma cell line showed an increase in the cellular uptake and transfection levels for the construction containing the LAEL motif. This study highlights the importance of controlling the polymer functionality using recombinant techniques and establishes the utility of ELRs as biocompatible nonviral systems for gene-therapy applications. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 103A: 3166-3178, 2015.
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    Methotrexate anchored carbon dots as theranostic probes: digitonin conjugation enhances cellular uptake and cytotoxicity
    (RSC Advances, 2016-06) Krishna, AS; Radhakumary, C; Priya, SS; Ramesan, RM; Sreenivasan, K
    In recent years carbon dots (CDs) have been drawing increasing attention in the area of nano medicine. Their indubitable roles in cellular imaging, drug delivery and diagnosis are widely acknowledged. Digitonin (DG) has traditionally been known as a cell membrane permeabilizing agent. Based on this fact, we modified CDs with DG (CDDG) and further conjugated them with methotrexate (MX). This probe, CDDG conjugated MX (CDMX) was subjected to physico chemical characterization, cytotoxic evaluation via MTT assay and cellular uptake studies using confocal laser microscopy. The drug release study implied that at physiological pH, release is less reflecting maximum drug retention in the probe during circulation. The results which emerged have shown that DG is impacted in enhancing cellular uptake and cytotoxic potential of the drug carriers. The study indicates that theranostic probes with improved features can be generated from CDs by a judicious modification
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    Modification of chitosan nanopartides for improved gene delivery
    (NANOMEDICINE, 2012) Ramesan, RM; Sharma, CP