Exposure to heavy metals alters the surface topology of alveolar macrophages and induces respiratory dysfunction among Indian metal arc-welders.

BACKGROUND: Despite the available clinico-epidemiological evidence of heavy metal-associated respiratory health hazards among metal arc-welders, experimental confirmation of such an association is lacking. METHODS: In this study, we recruited 15 metal arc-welders and 10 referent workers without direct exposure. We assessed respiratory health through a questionnaire and spirometry; estimated manganese, nickel and cadmium levels in blood, urine and induced sputum; performed differential counts of sputum leucocytes and measured plasma malondialdehyde (MDA). We used atomic force and scanning electron microscopy to assess the physical property of the alveolar macrophages (AMs) obtained from induced sputum and analysed cell surface deposition of heavy metals using energy dispersion X-ray analysis (EDX). Sputum cellular DNA damage was assessed by DNA-laddering assay. RESULTS: There was a higher body burden of manganese and nickel in the metal arc-welders than the referents. Among major spirometric indices, only the forced mid-expiratory flow rates (FEF25-75) were reduced in the welders compared with the referents (63.4 ± 14.7 vs. 89.2 ± 26.7, p < 0.01); this reduction was associated with both heavy metal levels (ß: -41.8, 95% CI: -78.5% to -5.1%) and plasma MDA (-0.37; -0.68 to -0.06). In metal arc-welders, significant physical and morphological changes were observed in AMs through microscopic evaluation while EDX analyses demonstrated higher deposition of heavy metals on the AM cell surface than the referents. We also observed a higher degree of DNA damage in the sputum cells of the exposed workers than the referents. CONCLUSION: Heavy metal exposure-induced adverse respiratory effects among metal arc-welders are mediated through haematological and cytological interactions.

Engineered Nanodelivery Systems to Improve DNA Vaccine Technologies.

DNA vaccines offer a flexible and versatile platform to treat innumerable diseases due to the ease of manipulating vaccine targets simply by altering the gene sequences encoded in the plasmid DNA delivered. The DNA vaccines elicit potent humoral and cell-mediated responses and provide a promising method for treating rapidly mutating and evasive diseases such as cancer and human immunodeficiency viruses. Although this vaccine technology has been available for decades, there is no DNA vaccine that has been used in bed-side application to date. The main challenge that hinders the progress of DNA vaccines and limits their clinical application is the delivery hurdles to targeted immune cells, which obstructs the stimulation of robust antigen-specific immune responses in humans. In this updated review, we discuss various nanodelivery systems that improve DNA vaccine technologies to enhance the immunological response against target diseases. We also provide possible perspectives on how we can bring this exciting vaccine technology to bedside applications.

M cell targeting engineered biomaterials for effective vaccination.

Vaccines are one of the greatest medical interventions of all time and have been successful in controlling and eliminating a myriad of diseases over the past two centuries. Among several vaccination strategies, mucosal vaccines have wide clinical applications and attract considerable interest in research, showing potential as innovative and novel therapeutics. In mucosal vaccination, targeting (microfold) M cells is a frontline prerequisite for inducing effective antigen-specific immunostimulatory effects. In this review, we primarily focus on materials engineered for use as vaccine delivery platforms to target M cells. We also describe potential M cell targeting areas, methods to overcome current challenges and limitations of the field. Furthermore, we present the potential of biomaterials engineering as well as various natural and synthetic delivery technologies to overcome the challenges of M cell targeting, all of which are absent in current literature. Finally, we briefly discuss manufacturing and regulatory processes to bring a robust perspective on the feasibility and potential of this next-generation vaccine technology.

Intranasal immunization with pneumococcal surface protein A in the presence of nanoparticle forming polysorbitol transporter adjuvant induces protective immunity against the Streptococcus pneumoniae infection.

Developing effective mucosal subunit vaccine for the Streptococcus pneumoniae has been unsuccessful mainly because of their poor immunogenicity with insufficient memory T and B cell responses. We thus address whether such limitation can be overcome by introducing effective adjuvants that can enhance immunity and show here that polysorbitol transporter (PST) serves as a mucosal adjuvant for a subunit vaccine against the Streptococcus pneumoniae. Pneumococcal surface protein A (PspA) with PST adjuvant induced protective immunity against S. pneumoniae challenge, especially long-term T and B cell immune responses. Moreover, we found that the PST preferentially induced T helper (Th) responses toward Th2 or T follicular helper (Tfh) cells and, importantly, that the responses were mediated through antigen-presenting cells via activating a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-γ) pathway. Thus, these data indicate that PST can be used as an effective and safe mucosal vaccine adjuvant against S. pneumoniae infection. STATE OF SIGNIFICANCE: In this study, we suggested the nanoparticle forming adjuvant, PST works as an effective adjuvant for the pneumococcal vaccine, PspA. The PspA subunit vaccine together with PST adjuvant efficiently induced protective immunity, even in the long-term memory responses, against Streptococcus pneumoniae lethal challenge. We found that PspA with PST adjuvant induced dendritic cell activation followed by follicular helper T cell responses through PPAR-γ pathway resulting long-term memory antibody-producing cells. Consequently, in this paper, we suggest the mechanism for safe nanoparticle forming subunit vaccine adjuvant against pneumococcal infection.

Degradable Polyethylenimine-Based Gene Carriers for Cancer Therapy.

Gene therapy using recombinant DNA or gene silencing using siRNA have become a prominent area of research in cancer therapy. However, their use in clinical applications is limited due to overall safety concerns and suboptimal efficacy. Although non-viral vectors such as polycationic polymers do not offer the same level of transfection efficiency as their viral counterparts, they still demonstrate immense potential as alternatives to viral vectors, given their versatility, low immunogenicity, ease of large-scale production, and ability to accelerate gene transfer with well-designed delivery platforms. Among these polymers, polyethylenimine (PEI) is considered a state-of-the-art gene carrier, owing to its ability to improve gene transfer capacity and intracellular delivery. Nonetheless, PEI suffers from the critical shortcoming of non-degradability that can lead to severe cytotoxic effects, despite the fact that the level of this toxicity decreases with molecular weight (MW). As a result, a considerable amount of effort has been devoted to designing low-MW PEI derivatives with degradable linkages. This review will categorize the recent advances in these degradable PEI derivatives based on their degradable chemistries, including ester, disulfide, imine, carbamate, amide, and ketal linkages, and summarize their application in gene therapies against various major cancer malignancies.

A high affinity kidney targeting by chitobionic acid-conjugated polysorbitol gene transporter alleviates unilateral ureteral obstruction in rats.

Aside from kidney transplantation - a procedure which is exceedingly dependent on donor-match and availability leading to excessive costs - there are currently no permanent treatments available which reverse kidney injury and failure. However, kidney-specific targeted gene therapy has outstanding potential to treat kidney-related dysfunction. Herein we report a novel kidney-specific targeted gene delivery system developed through the conjugation of chitobionic acid (CBA) to a polysorbitol gene transporter (PSGT) synthesized from sorbitol diacrylate and low molecular weight polyethylenimine (PEI) carrying hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) gene to alleviate unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO) in rats. CBA-PSGT performed exceptionally well for targeted delivery of HGF to kidney tissues compared to its non-targeted counterparts (P < 0.001) after systemic tail-vein injection and significantly reduced the UUO symptoms, returning the UUO rats to a normal health status. The kidney-targeted CBA-PSGT-delivered HGF also strikingly reduced various pathologic and molecular markers in vivo such as the level of collagens (type I and II), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine, and the expressions of ICAM-1, TIMP-1 and α-SMA which play a critical role in obstructive kidney functions. Therefore, CBA-PSGT should be further investigated because of its potential to alleviate UUO and kidney-related diseases using high affinity kidney targeting.

Mucoadhesive Chitosan Derivatives as Novel Drug Carriers.

Chitosan on its own is a well-established natural polymer and is widely regarded as a biodegradable, biocompatible and nontoxic material for drug delivery applications. Although unmodified chitosan has some mucoadhesive properties on its own, its bioavailability is limited due to its short retention time in the body. Moreover, the high solubility of chitosan at acidic pH levels limits its use for mucosal drug delivery (especially through the oral route). Chemically-modified mucoadhesive chitosan, especially thiolated chitosan, has arisen as an alternative to create novel mucosal drug delivery systems. The mucoadhesive properties that are conferred to the thiolated chitosan certainly set this novel class of second or third-generation thiomers apart. To understand the significance of mucoadhesive chitosan, we first present the mechanism of mucoadhesion and provide comprehensive coverage of description of a variety of chemical modifications to prepare mucoadhesive thiolated chitosan derivatives. We then present the plethora of applications of these modified chitosan variants in a wide range of drug delivery fields, including the delivery of antigens, proteins and genes through a variety of routes, including oral, nasal, pulmonary, vaginal and others. By presenting the range of applications for mucoadhesive chitosan drug carriers we herein demonstrate that chemically-modified thiolated chitosan is a versatile and effective material for a new class of drug delivery vehicles.

Regulation of endocytosis by non-viral vectors for efficient gene activity.

Non-viral carriers, able to regulate cellular uptake pathways are becoming promising vectors for efficient gene transfer into cells because the intracellular processing of gene is strongly determined by the internalization pathways and subsequent intracellular routes. The intracellular processing of gene can be directed either to digestive or non-digestive way depending on the endocytosis mechanism. Enormous attempts have been made to bypass or avoid the digestive way of lysosomal degradation for meaningful delivery of therapeutic genes at the target site. This review describes an updated information regarding regulation of endocytosis pathways in consequence with the cellular trafficking and the determinant factors of the initial mode of internalization route for rational design of non-viral gene carriers. Firstly, we describe various nonviral gene vectors and the key barriers to non-viral gene transfer. Secondly, various major endocytosis pathways and their significance in developing non-viral gene carriers are discussed. Thirdly, various factors that potentially regulate endocytosis pathways of gene carriers to improve gene delivery efficacy are elaborately described. Lastly, the perspectives of future studies to control endocytosis mechanisms are discussed to design potential non-viral gene vectors for active application in future.

Major degradable polycations as carriers for DNA and siRNA.

Non-viral gene delivery systems are one of the most potential alternatives to viral vectors because of their less immunogenicity, less toxicity and easy productivity in spite of their low capacity of gene transfection using DNA or silencing using siRNA compared to that of viral vectors. Among non-viral systems, the polycationic derivatives are the most popular gene carriers since they can effectively condense nucleic acids to transfer into the cells, especially the polyethylenimine (PEI) which has been used as a golden standard polymer owing to its high buffering ability for endosomal escape of gene to be expressed. However, PEI has severe problems for its toxicity due to the high positive charge density and non-degradability although the toxicity of PEI depends on its molecular weight (MW) and structure. Therefore, a considerable attention has been paid on synthesis of degradable PEI derivatives using low MW one because low MW PEI is much less toxic than high MW PEI. Other degradable polycationic gene carriers such as polyamidoamines (PAA) and cyclodextrin (CD)-based polycations are also in a significant interest because of their high transfection efficiency with low toxicity. This review in detail explains the recent developments on these three major degradable polycations as promising carriers for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA).

Induction of long-term immunity against respiratory syncytial virus glycoprotein by an osmotic polymeric nanocarrier.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the most common causes of viral deaths in infants worldwide, yet no effective vaccines are available. Here, we report an osmotically active polysaccharide-based polysorbitol transporter (PST) prepared from sorbitol diacrylate and low-molecular-weight polyethylenimine (PEI) showing a potent, yet safe, adjuvant activity and acting as an effective delivery tool for RSV glycoprotein (RGp) antigen. PST showed no toxicity in vitro or in vivo, unlike PEI and the well-known experimental mucosal adjuvant cholera toxin (CT). PST formed nano-sized complexes with RGp by simple mixing, without affecting antigenic stability. The complexes exhibited negative surface charges that made them highly efficient in the selective activation of phagocytic cells and enhancement of phagocytic uptake. This resulted in an improved cytokine production and in the significant augmentation of RGp-specific antibody production, which persisted for over 200 days. Interestingly, PST/RGp enhanced phagocytic uptake owing to the osmotic property of PST and its negative zeta potential, suggesting that PST could selectively stimulate phagocytic cells, thereby facilitating a long-lived antigen-specific immune response, which was presumably further enhanced by the polysaccharide properties of PST.

Design and application of chitosan microspheres as oral and nasal vaccine carriers: an updated review.

Chitosan, a natural biodegradable polymer, is of great interest in biomedical research due to its excellent properties including bioavailability, nontoxicity, high charge density, and mucoadhesivity, which creates immense potential for various pharmaceutical applications. It has gelling properties when it interacts with counterions such as sulfates or polyphosphates and when it crosslinks with glutaraldehyde. This characteristic facilitates its usefulness in the coating or entrapment of biochemicals, drugs, antigenic molecules as a vaccine candidate, and microorganisms. Therefore, chitosan together with the advance of nanotechnology can be effectively applied as a carrier system for vaccine delivery. In fact, chitosan microspheres have been studied as a promising carrier system for mucosal vaccination, especially via the oral and nasal route to induce enhanced immune responses. Moreover, the thiolated form of chitosan is of considerable interest due to its improved mucoadhesivity, permeability, stability, and controlled/extended release profile. This review describes the various methods used to design and synthesize chitosan microspheres and recent updates on their potential applications for oral and nasal delivery of vaccines. The potential use of thiolated chitosan microspheres as next-generation mucosal vaccine carriers is also discussed.

The role of osmotic polysorbitol-based transporter in RNAi silencing via caveolae-mediated endocytosis and COX-2 expression.

Polymeric diversity allows us to design gene carriers as an alternative to viral vectors, control cellular uptake, target intracellular molecules, and improve transfection and silencing capacity. Recently, we developed a polysorbitol-based osmotically active transporter (PSOAT), which exhibits several interesting mechanisms to accelerate gene delivery into cells. Herein, we report the efficacy of using the PSOAT system for small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery and its specific mechanism for cellular uptake to accelerate targeted gene silencing. We found that PSOAT functioned via a caveolae-mediated uptake mechanism due to hyperosmotic activity of the transporter. Moreover, this selective caveolae-mediated endocytosis of the polyplexes (PSOAT/siRNA) was regulated coincidently with the expression of caveolin (Cav)-1 and cyclooxygenase (COX)-2. Interestingly, COX-2 expression decreased dramatically over time due to degradation by the constant expression of Cav-1, as confirmed by high COX-2 expression after the inhibition of Cav-1, suggesting that PSOAT-mediated induction of Cav-1 directly influenced the selective caveolae-mediated endocytosis of the polyplexes. Furthermore, COX-2 expression was involved in the initial phase for rapid caveolae endocytic uptake of the particles synergistically with Cav-1, resulting in accelerated PSOAT-mediated target gene silencing.