Hyaluronic acid (HA) is an anionic biopolymer that is present in many tissues and can be involved in cancerous neoformations. HA can form complexes with proteins (particularly, serum albumin) in the body. However, HA structures and processes involving HA have not been extensively studied by NMR because the molecule's rigid structure makes these studies problematic. In the current work, self-diffusion of HA and bovine serum albumin (BSA), and water in solutions was measured by (1)H pulsed field gradient NMR (PFG NMR) with a focus on the HA-BSA-D2O systems at various concentrations of BSA and HA. It was shown that in the presence of even a small amount of HA, the self-diffusion coefficient (SDC) of BSA decreases. To explain this fact, three hypotheses were proposed and analyzed. The first one was based on the effect of slowing down of water mobility in the presence of HA. The second hypothesis suggested an effect of mechanical collisions of BSA with HA molecules. The third hypothesized that BSA and HA molecules form a complex where BSA molecules reduced in mobility. It was shown that the third mechanism is the most likely. The state of the BSA molecules in the BSA-HA-D2O system corresponds to a 'fast exchange' condition from the NMR point of view: BSA molecules reside in the 'free' and 'bound' (with HA) states for much shorter time than the diffusion time of the PFG NMR experiment, 7 ms. The fractions of 'bound' BSA molecules in the BSA-HA complex were estimated.

A novel coordination oligo/polymer is synthesized by metal-directed self-assembly from equimolar amounts of the (dppp)M(OTf) 2 precursor complexes (dppp = bis-(diphenylphosphino)-propane, OTf = triflate; M = Pd II or M = Pt II ) and banana-shaped bidentate dipyridyl ligands. The assemblies were characterized by ESI mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy. The analysis of the cloudy suspension prepared by dissolving the coordination polymer in aqueous methanol solutions indicates nanosized spherical objects to form. Evidence for vesicle formation from these metallo-supramolecular oligomers comes from (cryogenic) transmission electron microscopy (TEM, cryo-TEM). Atomic force microscopy revealed stable nanospheres on hydrophilic mica and monolayer formation on hydrophobic highly oriented pyrolitic graphite (HOPG) substrates. On mica, also torus-shaped object were observed, which are rationalized by vesicles that opened during the drying procedure and released the internal solvent. Elemental analysis of the nanoassemblies by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) indicates uncoordinated and coordinated pyridines in the coordination polymers that form the nanospheres. Various control experiments using different metal centers and modified ligands support the conclusions.

No abstract

No abstract