Comparison Study of Sugarcane Leaves and Corn Stover as a Potential Energy Source in Pyrolysis Process

AbstractSugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) and corn (Zea mays, Linn.) is widely planted in Thailand. The pyrolysis process has been carried out in thermochemical processing of organic decomposition of biomass to increase the value of the biomass. The aim of this study was to research the probability of sugarcane leaves and corn stover for pyrolysis process. The proximate analysis results indicate that corn stover has a volatile content higher than sugarcane leaves. Sugarcane leaves have a higher ash content than corn stover. The heating value was obtained 14.47 and 20.91MJ/kg for sugarcane leaves and corn stover, respectively. TGA results show 4 stages: dehydration, active pyrolysis passive pyrolysis and completed combustion stage. Furthermore, the thermal degradation of biomass could be considered an optimization of temperature for pyrolysis process

Cellular delivery of antibodies: effective targeted subcellular imaging and new therapeutic tool

It is already more than a century since the pioneering work of the Nobel Laureate Ehrlich gave birth to the side chain theory1, which helped to define antibodies and their ability to target specific biological sites. However, the use of antibodies is still restricted to the extracellular space due to the lack of a suitable delivery vehicle for the efficient transport of antibodies into live cells without inducing toxicity. In this work, we report the efficient encapsulation and delivery of antibodies into live cells with no significant loss of cell viability or any deleterious affect on the cell metabolic activity. This delivery system is based on poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl phosphorylcholine)-block-(2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl methacrylate), (PMPC-PDPA), a pH sensitive diblock copolymer that self-assembles to form nanometer-sized vesicles, also known as polymersomes, at physiological pH. These polymersomes can successfully deliver relatively high antibody payloads within live cells. Once inside the cells, we demonstrate that these antibodies can target their epitope by immune-labelling of cytoskeleton, Golgi, and transcription factor proteins in live cells. We also demonstrate that this effective antibody delivery mechanism can be used to control specific subcellular events, as well as modulate cell activity and pro-inflammatory process

PMPC-PDPA polymersomes-mediated siRNA delivery

Polymersomes made from the amphiphilic diblock copolymers, PMPC-PDPA, are proposed to serve as a siRNA carrier with pH-responsive property that provides endosomal escape. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the ability of polymersomes to provide effective intracellular delivery of siRNA into HeLa cells. Encapsulation of siRNA into polymersomes was performed by pH-switch and electroporation method, both techniques enable siRNA encapsulation. No alteration of polymersomes size and morphology was observed in DLS and TEM. Purification of polymersome was conducted to ensure that no free siRNA or polymer remained. Intracellular delivery was examined by using fluorescence-labelled siRNA to track the internalisation. Flow cytometry and fluorescence microscope were used to study the cellular uptake of polymersomes and siRNA. siRNA is successfully delivered with the distribution of siRNA signal throughout the cell, with stronger signal compared with Lipofectamine. Kinetic uptake of siRNA suggests that siRNA can be effectively delivered to most cells within 20 hours. In addition, evidence of endosomal escape of siRNA delivered by polymersomes was observed. Silencing activity of siRNA was determined by qPCR and Western blot, mRNA and protein expression of Lamin A/C as a target gene were not significantly decreased. Cytotoxicity and other cellular response, including pro-inflammatory response and interferon response, were investigated. Polymersomes provide very low cytotoxicity and no pro-inflammatory response, unlike Lipofectamine. Moreover, the gene expression profile of interferon response indicates the possible apoptosis occurrence in Lipofectamine treated cells, but not in polymersomes treated cells. The information suggests two possible factors that influence the silencing activity of siRNA delivered by polymersomes; the incomplete characterisation of siRNA process and the cellular response from carriers