Biocompatible polymers have received significant interest from researchers for their potential in diagnostic applications. This type of polymer can perform with an appropriate host response or carrier for a specific purpose. The current study aims to fabricate and characterise poly(ethylene) oxide (PEO) nanofibres with different concentrations for cytotoxicity evaluation in human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7) and to get an optimal PEO nanofibre concentration (permissible limit) as a suitable polymer matrix or carrier with potential use in diagnostic applications. The fabrication of PEO nanofibres was done using electrospinning and was characterised by structure and morphology, surface roughness, chemical bonding and release profiles. The functional effects of PEO nanofibres were evaluated with MTS assay and colony formation assay in MCF-7 cells. The results showed that viscosity plays a vital role in synthesising a polymer solution in electrospinning for producing beadless nanofibrous mats ranging from 4.7 Pa·s to 77.7 Pa·s. As the PEO concentration increases, the nanofibre diameter and thickness will increase, but the surface roughness will be decreased. The average fibre diameter for 5 wt% PEO, 6 wt% PEO and 7 wt% PEO nanofibres were 129 ± 70 nm, 185 ± 55 nm and 192 ± 53 nm, respectively. In addition, the fibre thickness for 4 wt% PEO, 5 wt% PEO, 6 wt% PEO and 7 wt% PEO nanofibres were 269 ± 3 μm, 664 ± 4 μm, 758 ± 7 μm and 1329 ± 44 μm, respectively. Contrarily, the surface roughness for 4 wt% PEO, 5 wt% PEO, 6 wt% PEO and 7 wt% PEO nanofibres were 55.6 ± 9 nm, 42.8 ± 6 nm, 42.7 ± 7 nm and 36.6 ± 1 nm, respectively. PEO nanofibres showed the same burst release pattern and rate due to the same molecular weight of PEO with a stable release rate profile after 15 min. It also demonstrates that the percentage of PEO nanofibre release increased with the increasing PEO concentration due to the fibre diameter and thickness. The findings showed that all PEO nanofibres formulations were non-toxic to MCF-7 cells. It is suggested that 5 wt% PEO nanofibre exhibited non-cytotoxic characteristics by maintaining the cell viability from dose 0-1000 μg/ml and did not induce the number of colonies. Therefore, 5 wt% PEO nanofibre is the optimal nanofibre concentration and was suggested as a suitable base polymer matrix or carrier with potential use for diagnostic purposes. The findings in this study have demonstrated the influence of cell growth and viability, including the effects of PEO nanofibre formulations on cancer progress characteristics to achieve a permissible PEO nanofibre concentration limit that can be a benchmark in medical applications, particularly diagnostic applications.
Spectrophotometric studies of lead borotellurite glasses were carried out before and after gamma irradiation exposure. The increasing peak on the TeO(4) bi-pyramidal arrangement and TeO(3+1) (or distorted TeO(4)) is due to augmentation of irradiation dose which is attributed to an increase in degree of disorder of the amorphous phase. The structures of lead tellurate contain Pb(3)TeO(6) consisting of TeO(3) trigonal pyramid connected by PbO(4) tetragonal forming a three-dimensional network. The decrease of glass rigidity is due to irradiation process which is supported by the XRD diffractograms results. The decreasing values of absorption edge indicate that red shift effect occur after irradiation processes. A shift in the optical absorption edge attributed to an increase of the conjugation length. The values of optical band gap, E(opt) were calculated and found to be dependent on the glass composition and radiation exposure. Generally, an increase and decrease in Urbach's energy can be considered as being due to an increase in defects within glass network.
The novelty of this work is the conjugation of poly(ethylene) oxide (PEO) with the erbium oxide (Er2O3) nanoparticles using the electrospinning technique. In this work, synthesised PEO-coated Er2O3 nanofibres were characterised and evaluated for their cytotoxicity to assess their potential use as diagnostic nanofibres for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). PEO has significantly impacted nanoparticle conductivity due to its lower ionic conductivity at room temperature. The findings showed that the surface roughness was improved over the nanofiller loading, implying an improvement in cell attachment. The release profile performed for drug-controlling purposes has demonstrated a stable release after 30 min. Cellular response in MCF-7 cells showed high biocompatibility of the synthesised nanofibres. The cytotoxicity assay results showed that the diagnostic nanofibres had excellent biocompatibility, indicating the feasibility for diagnosis purposes. With excellent contrast performance, the PEO-coated Er2O3 nanofibres developed novel T2 and T1-T2 dual-mode MRI diagnostic nanofibres leading to better cancer diagnosis. In conclusion, this work has demonstrated that the conjugation of PEO-coated Er2O3 nanofibres improved the surface modification of the Er2O3 nanoparticles as a potential diagnostic agent. Using PEO in this study as a carrier or polymer matrix significantly influenced the biocompatibility and internalisation efficiency of the Er2O3 nanoparticles without triggering any morphological changes after treatment. This work has suggested permissible concentrations of PEO-coated Er2O3 nanofibres for diagnostic uses.
Impedance spectroscopy was employed to assess the electrical properties of yeast following 405 nm laser irradiation, exploring the effects of visible, non-ionizing laser-induced inactivation as a more selective and safer alternative for photoinactivation applications compared to the use of DNA targeting, ionizing UV light. Capacitance and impedance spectra were obtained for yeast suspensions irradiated for 10, 20, 30, and 40 min using 100 and 200 mW laser powers. Noticeable differences in capacitance spectra were observed at lower frequencies (40 Hz to 1 kHz), with a significant increase at 40 min for both laser powers. β-dispersion was evident in the impedance spectra in the frequency range of 10 kHz to 10 MHz. The characteristic frequency of dielectric relaxation steadily shifted to higher frequencies with increasing irradiation time, with a drastic change observed at 40 min for both laser powers. These changes signify a distinct alteration in the physical state of yeast. A yeast spot assay demonstrated a decrease in cell viability with increasing laser irradiation dose. The results indicate a correlation between changes in electrical properties, cell viability, and the efficacy of 405 nm laser-induced inactivation. Impedance spectroscopy is shown to be an efficient, non-destructive, label-free method for monitoring changes in cell viability in photobiological effect studies. The development of impedance spectroscopy-based real-time studies in photoinactivation holds promise for advancing our understanding of light-cell interactions in medical applications.