Designing and evaluation of sodium selenite nanoparticles in vitro to improve selenium absorption in ruminants

Sodium selenite is used to prevent selenium deficiency known as nutritional muscular dystrophy or white muscle disease. In ruminants, selenium supplements are transformed partiality in insoluble form by ruminal microorganisms and its process decrease the selenium absorption in digestive gastrointestinal. However, the objective in this research was focused in encapsulated sodium selenite to be release into of a pH less than four, similarity to an intestinal environment. It was encapsulated by nanoprecipitation and emulsion–evaporation methods, within polymeric nanoparticles. The effect of these methods, polymer proportion (Eudragit RL and RS) and solvent (ethanol and acetone) on the physicochemical (drug entrapment, polidispersity index (PDI) and z potential) and morphological characteristics (particle morphology and particle size) were evaluated. Particle size from each nanoparticles, formulation ranged from 36.64 to 213.86 nm. Particle size, z potential and PDI increased (P ≤ 0.01) when nanoprecipitation and ethanol were used. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were observed when different polymeric proportions were used. Selenium entrapment was 26% when emulsion–evaporation method was used and 78% with nanoprecipitation. Nanoparticles produced by nanoprecipitation were spherical and had a great variation in particle size; on the other hand, nanoparticles produced by emulsion–evaporation were spherical as well as amorphous and presented a homogeneous nanopartcicle size distribution. The release of selenium from nanoparticles was higher in acid pH (less than 4), this condition may represent a better availability of the mineral in the small intestine

Ratio of proliferating cell nuclear antigen-positive nuclei to total cell number is higher in day 7 than in day 8 vitrified in vitro-produced bovine embryos

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Hierarchical structures in lamellar hydrogen bonded LC side chain diblock copolymers

We show that in a hydrogen bonded LC side chain diblock copolymer with lamellar morphology on the block copolymer level, two distinct packing mechanisms of the side chain blocks are possible depending on the amount of hydrogen bonded side chains. We mixed a hydrogen bonding mesogen, cholesteryl hemisuccinate (CholHS), with poly(1,2-butadiene)-block-poly(2-vinylpyridine) (PBd-P2VP) and poly(styrene)-block-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PS-P4VP), in which the poly(vinylpyridine) act as host blocks, and we varied the CholHS to pyridine repeat unit ratio (x). With all x, a lamellar morphology on the block copolymer level was achieved. However, at low binding of CholHS to the host block, the CholHS side chains microphase separated into a single layer inside the poly(pyridine) lamellae resulting in a novel microphase separated structure. This includes, for example, the PS-P4VP sample with x = 0.25 and all the PBd-P2VP based samples since hydrogen bonding of CholHS to P2VP was sterically limited as revealed by infrared spectroscopy. No such limits were present in the rest of the PS-P4VP samples which showed a gradual shift from the single CholHS lamella morphology to exclusively liquid crystalline smectic layers oriented perpendicular to the block domain interfaces. © 2012 American Chemical Society