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Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have attracted great interest regarding drug-delivery applications. However, their application has been limited by some inherent disadvantages. In this study, raw SWCNTs were purified with different oxidizing acids, and the resulting shortened CNTs were conjugated with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and polyethylenimine (PEI). The different nanocarriers, that is, CNTs-COOH (CNTs), CNTs-PEG and CNTs-PEG-PEI, were systematically characterized and evaluated in terms of drug loading, in vitro release, cytotoxicity towards MCF-7 cells and cellular uptake. The results showed that all CNT carriers had a high drug loading capacity. In comparison with CNTs-COOH and CNTs-PEG, CNTs-PEG-PEI showed a more rapid drug release under acidic conditions and a higher antitumor activity. Furthermore, fluorescence detection and flow cytometry (FCM) analysis results indicated that the internalization into cells of CNTs-PEG-PEI was significantly enhanced, thus inducing tumor cell death through apoptosis more efficiently. The above series of benefits of CNTs-PEG-PEI may be attributed to their good dispersibility and comparably higher affinity to tumor cells due to the difunctionalization. In summary, the PEG- and PEI-conjugated CNTs may be used as novel nanocarriers and the findings will contribute to the rational design of multifunctional delivery vehicles for anticancer drugs.

Summary.A rapid method has been used for simultaneous identification of both hydrophilic and lipophilic compounds from Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae (RSM, the root of Salvia miltiorrhiza B GE .) by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-offlight mass spectrometry (UPLC/Q-TOF-MS). A total of 58 compounds extracted by methanol were detected and tentatively identified within 20 min, including hydrophilic phenolics, lipophilic diterpenoids, a verbascose, and several organic acids. These compounds were separated on an Acquity UPLC BEH C18 column and identified based on tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) fragmentation patterns under the positive and negative ion modes, respectively. Among them, micranthin B and 9-oxo-10E,12Z-octadecadienoic acid were reported in RSM for the first time. Their fragmentation patterns in electrospray ionization (ESI)-MS/MS spectra were first investigated by matching their accurate molecular masses. This contribution presented one of the first reports on the analysis of hydrophilic phenolics and lipophilic diterpenoids from Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae using UPLC/Q-TOF-MS. The results demonstrated that UPLC/Q-TOF-MS method could be applied to rapidly and expediently describe and provide comprehensive chemical information for simultaneous analysis of two different polar components in RSM.

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