Colloid Stability Influences on the Biological Organization and Functions

Abstract

It is common to entities having sizes in the nano/micro-scale range be that, real or bio-intended systems, to undergo the action of many different forces, imparting them colloid stability. Ubiquitary electrostatic contributions, sometimes dominant, may overlap with steric stabilization ones; their combination effectively takes place in most cases. The two effects are jointly responsible, for instance, for the control of many phenomena such as: adhesion onto cells of alien agents, cellular separation during morpho-functional evolution, uptake of exogenous materials into cells and tissues. We evidence here, how the combination of these forces operates, and indicate the procedures leading to their effectiveness, when required for purposes inherent to biomimicry.

Natural Products from Madagascar, Socio-Cultural Usage, and Potential Applications in Advanced Biomedicine: A Concise Review

“…However, vesicles may show a cytotoxic effect, which is directly related to time of exposure and dose of administration, as well as to the nature of the composing cat-anionic moieties which to some extent may determine the more or less pronounced cytotoxicity of the particle. In any case, cytotoxicity evaluations and biological viability has been evaluated from our and other authors: in particular, results from our laboratories show that the transfected cat-anionic/RNA lipoplex is efficiently translated into protein [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. For a chemico-physical characterization of cat-anionic vesicles, see Figure 10 and reference [ 43 ].…”

“…The supramolecular organization of nanotubes plays a role in their biocompatibility. For instance, nanotube crossing of the plasma membrane causes no alterations of the dielectric parameters of the cell membrane, which indicates that, at least at the first encounter, the nanoparticles did not damage the overall membrane structure, function, and permeability [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 51 , 52 ].…”