Biodegradable PEG-poly(ω-pentadecalactone- co - p -dioxanone) nanoparticles for enhanced and sustained drug delivery to treat brain tumors

Intracranial delivery of therapeutic agents is limited by penetration beyond the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and rapid metabolism of the drugs that are delivered. Convection-enhanced delivery (CED) of drugloaded nanoparticles (NPs) provides for local administration, control of distribution, and sustained drug release. While some investigators have shown that repeated CED procedures are possible, longer periods of sustained release could eliminate the need for repeated infusions, which would enhance safety and translatability of the approach. Here, we demonstrate that nanoparticles formed from poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(u-pentadecalactone-co-p-dioxanone) block copolymers [PEG-poly(PDL-co- DO)] are highly efficient nanocarriers that provide long-term release: small nanoparticles (less than 100 nm in diameter) continuously released a radiosensitizer (VE822) over a period of several weeks in vitro, provided widespread intracranial drug distribution during CED, and yielded significant drug retention within the brain for over 1 week. One advantage of PEG-poly(PDL-co-DO) nanoparticles is that hydrophobicity can be tuned by adjusting the ratio of hydrophobic PDL to hydrophilic DO monomers, thus making it possible to achieve a wide range of drug release rates and drug distribution profiles. When administered by CED to rats with intracranial RG2 tumors, and combined with a 5-day course of fractionated radiation therapy, VE822-loaded PEG-poly(PDL-co-DO) NPs significantly prolonged survival when compared to free VE822. Thus, PEG-poly(PDL-co-DO) NPs represent a new type of versatile nanocarrier system with potential for sustained intracranial delivery of therapeutic agents to treat brain tumors

Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes as models for genetic cardiovascular disorders

Purpose of review: The development of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology has led to many advances in the areas of directed cell differentiation and characterization. New methods for generating iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes provide an invaluable resource for the study of certain cardiovascular disorders. This review highlights the current technology in this field, its application thus far to the study of genetic disorders of the RAS/MAPK pathway and long-QT syndrome (LQTS), and future directions for the field. Recent findings: Enhanced methods increase the efficiency of generating and stringently purifying iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. The use of cardiomyocytes derived from patients with LEOPARD syndrome and LQTS has shed light on the molecular mechanisms of disease and validated their use as reliable human disease models. Summary: The use of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes to study genetic cardiovascular disorders will enable a deeper and more applicable understanding of the molecular mechanisms of human disease, as well as improving our ability to achieve successful cell-based therapies. Methods to efficiently generate these cells are improving and provide promise for future applications of this technology. © 2011 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

Autonomous and Non-autonomous Defects Underlie Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in BRAF-Mutant hiPSC-Derived Cardiomyocytes

© 2016 The AuthorsGermline mutations in BRAF cause cardio-facio-cutaneous syndrome (CFCS), whereby 40% of patients develop hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). As the role of the RAS/MAPK pathway in HCM pathogenesis is unclear, we generated a human induced

Genetic Variation, Not Cell Type of Origin, Underlies the Majority of Identifiable Regulatory Differences in iPSCs

The advent of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) revolutionized human genetics by allowing us to generate pluripotent cells from easily accessible somatic tissues. This technology can have immense implications for regenerative medicine, but iPSCs also represent a paradigm shift in the study of complex human phenotypes, including gene regulation and disease. Yet, an unresolved caveat of the iPSC model system is the extent to which reprogrammed iPSCs retain residual phenotypes from their precursor somatic cells. To directly address this issue, we used an effective study design to compare regulatory phenotypes between iPSCs derived from two types of commonly used somatic precursor cells. We find a remarkably small number of differences in DNA methylation and gene expression levels between iPSCs derived from different somatic precursors. Instead, we demonstrate genetic variation is associated with the majority of identifiable variation in DNA methylation and gene expression levels. We show that the cell type of origin only minimally affects gene expression levels and DNA methylation in iPSCs, and that genetic variation is the main driver of regulatory differences between iPSCs of different donors. Our findings suggest that studies using iPSCs should focus on additional individuals rather than clones from the same individual