pH Initiated Site Specific Drug Release
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Mozer, Brighton
Spencer, Cailin
Berkowitz, Seth
Hague, Connor
Advisor
Editor
Date of Issue
2019-04-25
Subject Keywords
Publisher
Citation
Series/Report No.
item.page.identifier
Title
pH Initiated Site Specific Drug Release
Other Titles
Type
Description
Abstract
Studies have shown that unhealthy cells can have more acidic conditions in the cytoplasm. A medical application for this is to target unhealthy cells with vesicles containing a drug and then lyse when exposed to a more acidic environment. To demonstrate acidic pH-initiated cell lysing, sodium laurate was integrated into a dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) bilayer by sonicating the two organic compounds at a 1:1 ratio in a phenol red solution. Newly made vesicles contained phenol red, a chromophoric pH indicator that appears red in basic solutions, but yellow in acidic solutions. Vesicles will lyse as surrounding solution becomes more acidic, protonating sodium laurate to become lauric acid, and collapsing the bilayer. The expected results would be a delayed increase in absorbance at 420 nm when compared to phenol red alone being exposed to an acidic environment.