Healthy adult male albino rats were subjected to inhalation of increasing doses of detergent (dioctyl sodium sulfo-succinate) aerosol ranging from 100 mg to 500 mg. Administration of 500 mg of detergent aerosol resulted in peribronchial and focal alveolar oedema in 3 out of 5 animals. The lungs of control animals which were subjected to inhalation of vehicle aerosol (ethanol and saline) did not show any abnormality. It is possible that pulmonary oedema observed in detergent aerosol inhalation may be due to the action of detergents on the surfactant system of the lung.
The toxicities of ROUNDUP and its component chemicals, glyphosate (N-phosphonomethylglycine) and polyoxyethyleneamine (POEA), were determined at 0, 1, 3, 6 and 24 h following administration to rats. The intratracheal administration of glyphosate (0.2 g/kg), POEA (0.1 g/kg), a mixture of glyphosate (0.2 g/kg) + POEA (0.1 g/kg), or ROUNDUP (containing 0.2 g/kg glyphosate and 0.1 g/kg POEA) elicited immediate respiratory effects which were more severe and which lasted longer in the groups receiving the POEA-containing preparations than in the glyphosate alone group. By 1 h, all test preparations had caused deaths, but more occurred from the POEA-containing preparations than from glyphosate. The po administration of POEA (1 g/kg), the mixture of glyphosate (2 g/kg) +POEA (1 g/kg), or ROUNDUP (containing 2 g/kg glyphosate and 1 g/kg POEA) produced diarrhea and blood-stained weeping from noses. Death was only seen from POEA at 24 h. Glyphosate (2 g/kg po) produced transient diarrhea without nose bleeds; POEA caused diarrhea at 1 h; and the mixture of POEA + glyphosate produced diarrhea later that increased in severity with time. Bloody nose secretions were seen only with the preparations that contained POEA. No deaths, respiratory effects or bloody nose secretions occurred in controls given saline. Both POEA and glyphosate caused lung hemorrhages and lung epithelial cell damage with po or intratracheal exposures. These results indicate POEA and preparations that contained POEA were more toxic than glyphosate.
Previously synthesized amphiphilic diblock copolymers with pendant dendron moieties have been investigated for their potential use as drug carriers to improve the delivery of an anticancer drug to human breast cancer cells. Diblock copolymer (P71 D3 )-based micelles effectively encapsulate the doxorubicin (DOX) with a high drug-loading capacity (≈95%, 104 DOX molecules per micelle), which is approximately double the amount of drug loaded into the diblock copolymer (P296 D1 ) vesicles. DOX released from the resultant P71 D3 /DOX micelles is approximately 1.3-fold more abundant, at a tumoral acidic pH of 5.5 compared with a pH of 7.4. The P71 D3 /DOX micelles also enhance drug potency in breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells due to their higher intracellular uptake, by approximately twofold, compared with the vesicular nanocarrier, and free DOX. Micellar nanocarriers are taken up by lysosomes via energy-dependent processes, followed by the release of DOX into the cytoplasm and subsequent translocation into the nucleus, where it exert its cytotoxic effect.