Biomedical subjects

J Strancar

Publications and source records attributed to J Strancar.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

New EPR method for cellular surface characterization.

An electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)-based membrane surface characterization method is presented to detect the properties of the carbohydrate-rich part of membrane surfaces as well as carbohydrate interaction with other membrane constituents and water-soluble molecules. The proposed method relies on the spin-labeling and spectral decomposition based on spectral simulation and optimization with EPRSIM software. In order to increase the sensitivity of characterization to the carbohydrate-rich part of the membrane surface, the sucrose-contrasting approach is introduced. With this method, which was established on model membranes with glycolipids and tested on erythrocyte membrane, we were able to characterize the surface and lipid bilayer lateral heterogeneity. Additionally, some properties of the interaction between glycocalyx and lipid bilayer as well as between glycocalyx and sucrose molecules were determined. The experiments also provided some information about the anchoring and aggregation of the glycosylated molecules. According to the results, some functions of the glycosylated surface are discussed.

Algorithms↗

PubMed2000

Influence of spin probe structure on its distribution in SLN dispersions.

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) are drug carrier system composed of biodegradable substances, which are solid at room temperature. The physico-chemical properties and structure of the incorporated compounds can affect their partitioning in SLN dispersions. In this work the influence of lipophilicity and structure of different SP on its location in SLN were studied. By electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements it was found that lipophilic SP distribute between a solid glyceride core and a soft phospholipid layer, with the more polar part (piperidine ring or methylcarboxylic groups) oriented toward the water-lipid interface. The majority of SP is located in the phospholipid layer, but the portion in the solid lipid core increases with SP lipophilicity. The hydrophilic Tempol does not incorporate into SLN.

Drug Carriers↗

PubMed2000

Fast and accurate characterization of biological membranes by EPR spectral simulations of nitroxides.

A method by which it is possible to characterize the membranes of biological samples on the basis of the EPR spectral lineshape simulation of membrane-dissolved nitroxide spin probes is described. The presented simulation procedure allows the determination of the heterogeneous structure of biological membranes and fluidity characteristics of individual membrane domains. The method can deal with isotropic and anisotropic orientations of nitroxides introduced into the biological samples described by restricted fast motion with a correlation time between 0.01 and 10 ns. The linewidths of the Lorentzian lineshapes are calculated in a restricted fast-motion approximation. In the special case of samples with high concentrations of nitroxides or in the presence of paramagnetic ions, the lineshapes are calculated directly from the exchange-coupled Bloch equations. The parameters describing ordering, relaxation, polarity, and the portions of the individual spectral components are extracted by optimizing the simulated spectra to the experimental spectrum with either a Simplex or a Monte Carlo algorithm. To improve the algorithm's efficiency, a new way of characterizing the goodness of fits is introduced. The new criterion is based on the standard least-squares function, but with special weighting of the partial sums. Its benefits are confirmed with membrane spectral simulation. Two classes of examples-simulation and optimizations of synthetic spectra to evaluate the accuracy of the optimization algorithms and simulation and optimization of EPR spectra of nitroxides in liposome suspensions in the presence of a broadening agent and in human leukocytes are shown.

Algorithms↗