A New Analytical Material-Enhanced Laser Desorption Ionization (MELDI) Based Approach for the Determination of Low-Mass Serum Constituents Using Fullerene Derivatives for Selective Enrichment

A Review of Theranostics Applications and Toxicities of Carbon Nanomaterials

BACKGROUND

In the last few years, the use of modified Carbon Nanomaterials (CNMs) for theranostics (therapeutic and diagnosis) applications is a new and rapidly growing area in pharmacy and medical fields. Owing to this, their specific physicochemical behaviors like high stability, drug loading, surface area to volume ratio, with low toxicity and immunogenicity are mainly responsible to be considered those as smart nanomaterials.

OBJECTIVES

This review describes the different dimensions of carbon-based nanocarriers including 0-D fullerene, 1-D Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), and 2-D graphene and Graphene Oxide (GO) and their surface modification with different biocompatible and biodegradable molecules via covalent or non-covalent functionalization. The major focus of this article is on the different theranostics applications of CNMs like targeted drugs and genes delivery, photodynamic therapy, photothermal therapy, bioimaging, and biosensing. The therapeutic efficacy of drugs could be enhanced by delivering them directly on a specific site using different targeted ligands such as vitamins, peptide, carbohydrates, proteins, etc. A section of the article also discusses the toxicity of the CNMs to the living systems.

CONCLUSIONS

In brief, this review article discusses the numerous theranostics applications and toxicities of CNMs.

Recent Developments in Solid-Phase Extraction for Near and Attenuated Total Reflection Infrared Spectroscopic Analysis

A review with more than 100 references on the principles and recent developments in the solid-phase extraction (SPE) prior and for in situ near and attenuated total reflection (ATR) infrared spectroscopic analysis is presented. New materials, chromatographic modalities, experimental setups and configurations are described. Their advantages for fast sample preparation for distinct classes of compounds containing different functional groups in order to enhance selectivity and sensitivity are discussed and compared. This is the first review highlighting both the fundamentals of SPE, near and ATR spectroscopy with a view to real sample applicability and routine analysis. Most of real sample analyses examples are found in environmental research, followed by food- and bioanalysis. In this contribution a comprehensive overview of the most potent SPE-NIR and SPE-ATR approaches is summarized and provided.

A Comprehensive Computational Study of the Interaction between Human Serum Albumin and Fullerenes

Human serum albumin (HSA) is the most abundant blood plasma protein, which transports fatty acids, hormones, and drugs. We consider nanoparticle-HSA interactions by investigating the binding of HSA with three fullerene analogs. Long MD simulations, quantum mechanical (fragment molecular orbital, energy decomposition analysis, atoms-in-molecules), and free energy methods elucidated the binding mechanism in these complexes. Such a systematic study is valuable due to the lack of comprehensive theoretical approaches to date. The main elements of the mechanism include the following: binding to IIA site results in allosteric modulation of the IIIA and heme binding sites with an increase in α-helical structure of IIIA. Fullerenes displayed high binding affinities for HSA; therefore, HSA can be used as a fullerene carrier, facilitating any toxic function the fullerene may exert. Complex formation is driven by hydrogen bonding, van der Waals, nonpolar, charge transfer, and dispersion energy contributions. Proper functionalization of C60 has enhanced its binding to HSA by more than an order of magnitude. This feature may be important for biological applications (e.g., photodynamic therapy of cancer). Satisfactory agreement with relevant experimental and theoretical data has been obtained.

Alternative profiling platform based on MELDI and its applicability in clinical proteomics

The presence of numerous proteomics data and their results in literature reveal the importance and influence of proteins and peptides on human cell cycle. For instance, the proteomic profiling of biological samples, such as serum, plasma or cells, and their organelles, carried out by surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry, has led to the discovery of numerous key proteins involved in many biological disease processes. However, questions still remain regarding the reproducibility, bioinformatic artifacts and cross-validations of such experimental set-ups. The authors have developed a material-based approach, termed material-enhanced laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MELDI-MS), to facilitate and improve the robustness of large-scale proteomic experiments. MELDI-MS includes a fully automated protein-profiling platform, from sample preparation and analysis to data processing involving state-of-the-art methods, which can be further improved. Multiplexed protein pattern analysis, based on material morphology, physical characteristics and chemical functionalities provides a multitude of protein patterns and allows prostate cancer samples to be distinguished from non-prostate cancer samples. Furthermore, MELDI-MS enables not only the analysis of protein signatures, but also the identification of potential discriminating peaks via capillary liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. The optimized MELDI approach offers a complete proteomics platform with improved sensitivity, selectivity and short sample preparation times.

Mass spectrometry of peptides and proteins from human blood

It is difficult to convey the accelerating rate and growing importance of mass spectrometry applications to human blood proteins and peptides. Mass spectrometry can rapidly detect and identify the ionizable peptides from the proteins in a simple mixture and reveal many of their post-translational modifications. However, blood is a complex mixture that may contain many proteins first expressed in cells and tissues. The complete analysis of blood proteins is a daunting task that will rely on a wide range of disciplines from physics, chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, electromagnetic instrumentation, mathematics and computation. Therefore the comprehensive discovery and analysis of blood proteins will rank among the great technical challenges and require the cumulative sum of many of mankind's scientific achievements together. A variety of methods have been used to fractionate, analyze and identify proteins from blood, each yielding a small piece of the whole and throwing the great size of the task into sharp relief. The approaches attempted to date clearly indicate that enumerating the proteins and peptides of blood can be accomplished. There is no doubt that the mass spectrometry of blood will be crucial to the discovery and analysis of proteins, enzyme activities, and post-translational processes that underlay the mechanisms of disease. At present both discovery and quantification of proteins from blood are commonly reaching sensitivities of ∼1 ng/mL.

New stationary phases for enrichment and separation in the 'omics' era

'Omics' is a general term for a broad discipline of science and engineering concerned with analyzing the interactions of biological molecular components in various 'omes'. These include genome, proteome, metabolome, expressome and interactome. 'Ome' and 'omics' are very convenient handles for describing the holistic approach for looking at complex systems. 'Omics' will not only have an impact on our understanding of biological processes, but also on the prospect of more accurately diagnosing and treating disease. The development of these 'omics' has depended on, and has also driven, advances in chromatography and electrophoresis, as well as highly sensitive and specific analytical techniques to permit the handling of large numbers of samples with high selectivity and sensitivity. The development and design of novel stationary phases for selective enrichment and separation is one of the key points for establishing a successfully running 'omics' platform. Therefore, this review demonstrates the application of different new materials developed in our laboratory, such as chromatographic stationary phases for selective and sensitive high-speed purification, enrichment and separation in genomics, proteomics and metabolomics.

Laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometric analysis of small molecules using fullerene-derivatized silica as energy-absorbing material

In spite of the growing acceptance of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry for the analysis of a wide variety of compounds, including polymers and proteins, its use in analyzing low-molecular-weight molecules (<1000 m/z) is still limited. This is mainly due to the interference of matrix molecules in the low-mass range. Here the derivatized fullerenes covalently bound to silica particles with different pore sizes are applied as thin layer for laser desorption/ionization (LDI) mass spectrometric analysis. Thus, an interference of intrinsic matrix ions can be eliminated or minimized in comparison with the state-of-the-art weak organic acid matrices. The desorption/ionization ability of the developed fullerene-silica materials depends on the applied laser power, sample preparation and pore size of the silica particles. Thus, fullerene-silica serves as an LDI support for mass spectrometric analysis of molecules (<1500 Da). The performance of the fullerene-silica is demonstrated by the mass analysis of variety of small molecules such as carbohydrates, amino acids, peptides, phospholipids and drugs.

Selective formation and structural properties of rhombic dodecahedral [70]fullerene microparticles formed by reaction with aliphatic diamines

We have accomplished the selective formation of rhombic dodecahedral microparticles on the submicrometer to micrometer scale by the reaction of [70]fullerene (C(70)) with primary aliphatic diamines. The morphology of the resultant microparticles was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, and other spectroscopic methods, demonstrating that the resultant particles held a rhombic dodecahedral shape having a simple cubic lattice structure and that primary aliphatic amines were mostly trapped inside the particles through electronic interaction between C(70) and amines. Furthermore, we have discovered interesting structural characteristics in which the incorporated amines could be removed from the C(70) microparticles or exchanged with other primary aliphatic diamines.

Nano-structured support materials, their characterisation and serum protein profiling through MALDI/TOF-MS

In the bioanalytical era, novel nano-materials for the selective extraction, pre-concentration and purification of biomolecules prior to analysis are vital. Their application as affinity binding in this regard is needed to be authentic. We report here the comparative application of derivatised materials and surfaces on the basis of nano-crystalline diamond, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes for the analysis of marker peptides and proteins by material enhanced laser desorption ionisation mass spectrometry MELDI-MS. In this particular work, the emphasis is placed on the derivatization, termed as immobilised metal affinity chromatography (IMAC), with three different support materials, to show the effectiveness of MELDI technique. For the physicochemical characterisation of the phases, near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) is used, which is a well-established method within the analytical chemistry, covering a wide range of applications. NIRS enables differentiation between silica materials and different fullerenes derivatives, in a 3-dimensional factor-plot, depending on their derivatizations and physical characteristics. The method offers a physicochemical quantitative description in the nano-scale level of particle size, specific surface area, pore diameter, pore porosity, pore volume and total porosity with high linearity and improved precision. The measurement takes only a few seconds while high sample throughput is guaranteed.