targeting molecules the binding of the antibodyconjugated dendrimers to antigenexpressing cells was evaluated by flow cytometry and confocal microscopy the conjugates specifically bound to the antigenexpressing cells in a time and dosedependent fashion, with affinity similar to that of the free antibody fig, confocal microscopic analysis suggested at least some cellular internalization of the dendrimer conjugate dendrimerantibody conjugates are, therefore, a testosterone viagra suitable platform for targeted molecule delivery into antigenexpressing cells monolayers formed by generation ����� dendrimers on a gold surface were functionalized testosterone viagra with biotin and produced a biomolecular interface that was m ll id � fig confocal microscopic analysis of hl cells, which testosterone viagra were incubated h at �c with nm g ����� carrying fluorescence dye and bca antibody on the surface the cells were testosterone viagra rinsed and confocal images were taken the left and right panels represent the ftc fluorescence and light images taken in the testosterone viagra same cell the arrow indicates the binding of the conjugate on the cell surface at �c reproduced with permission from testosterone viagra ref copyright american chemical society capable of binding high levels of avidin avidin binding as high as coverage of the surface testosterone viagra was observed despite conditions that should cause serious steric hindrance these dendritic monolayers were utilized as a model to study protein ligand interactions penicillins the surfaces of ����� dendrimers, generations to , were decorated with ben zylpenicillin in an attempt to develop a new in vitro test to quantify ige antibodies to specific lactam conjugates, with the goal of improving the existing methods for diagnosing allergy to this type of antibiotic the monodispersity of dendrimers is advantageous over conventional peptide carrier conjugates such as human serum albumin nonprecise density of haptens in their structure and polyllysine mixture of heterogeneous molecular weight peptides preliminary radioallergosorbent tests rast, testosterone viagra using sera from patients allergic to penicillin, have confirmed the usefulness of penicilloylated dendrimers penicillin v was used as a model testosterone viagra drug containing a carboxylic group and attached to the surface of ����� dendrimers generations and , both containing surface functionalities the testosterone viagra drug was complexed to the dendrimers via amide or ester bonds it was found in tests using a singlestrain bacterium, staphylococcus testosterone viagra aureus, that the bioavailability of the penicillin was unaltered after the drug was released from the complex through ester bond hydrolysis dendrimers as nanodrugs dendrimers have been studied as antitumor, antiviral and antibacterial drugs the most prominent and advanced example is the testosterone viagra use of polylysine dendrimers, modified with sulfonated naphthyl groups, as antiviral drugs against the herpes simplex virus such a conjugate based on dendritic polylysine scaffolding is vivagel, a topical agent currently under development by starpharma ltd, melbourne, australia, that can potentially preventreduce transmission of hiv and other sexually transmitted diseases stds vivagel spl is being offered as a waterbased gel, with the purpose testosterone viagra to prevent hiv from binding to cells in the body the gel differs from physical barriers to stds such as condoms, testosterone viagra by exhibiting inhibitory activity against hiv and other stds in july , following submission of an investigational new drug ind application, starpharma gained clearance under us fda regulations to proceed with a phase i clinical study to assess the safety of vivagel testosterone viagra in healthy human subjects this phase study, representing for the first time a dendrimer pharmaceutical tested in humans, compared women who testosterone viagra received either various intravaginal doses of vivagel or a placebo gel daily for one week the trial was double blinded so testosterone viagra that the volunteers, principal investigator and starpharma did not know who was receiving placebo or vivagel study participants were assessed for testosterone viagra possible irritant effects of the gel additionally, the women were assessed for any possible effect upon vaginal microflora natural microorganisms in the vagina or absorption into the blood of the active ingredient of vivagel a thorough review of the complete data revealed testosterone viagra no evidence of irritation or inflammation preclinical development studies had demonstrated that vivagel was effective at preventing infection of primates testosterone viagra exposed to a humanized strain of simian immunodeficiency virus shiv in earlier studies, it was found that ����� dendrimers covalently modified with naphthyl sulfonate residues on the surface, also exhibited antiviral activity against hiv this dendrimerbased nanodrug inhibited early stage viruscell adsorption testosterone viagra and later stage viral replication, by interfering with reverse transcriptase andor integrase enzyme activities the general mode of action of antibacterial testosterone viagra dendrimers is to adhere to and damage the anionic bacterial membrane, causing bacterial lysis ppi dendrimers with tertiary alkyl ammonium groups testosterone viagra attached to the surface have been shown to be potent antibacterial biocides against gram positive and gram negative bacteria the nature testosterone viagra of the counterion is important, as tetraalkylammonium bromides were found to be more potent antibacterials over the corresponding chlorides polylysine dendrimers testosterone viagra with mannosyl surface groups are effective inhibitors of the adhesion of e coli to horse blood cells in a haemagglutination assay, testosterone viagra making these structures promising antibacterial agents chitosandendrimer hybrids have been found to be useful as antibacterial agents, carriers in drug testosterone viagra delivery systems, and in other biomedical applications their behavior have been reviewed very recently triazinebased antibiotics were loaded into dendrimer beads testosterone viagra at high yields the release of the antibiotic compounds from a single bead was sufficient to give a clear inhibition effect testosterone viagra in many cases, dendritic constructs were more potent than analogous systems based on hyperbranched polymers the antiprion activity of cationic phosphoruscontaining testosterone viagra dendrimers with tertiary amine surface groups has been evaluated these molecules had a strong anti prion activity at nontoxic doses they testosterone viagra have been found to decrease the amount of preexisting prpsc from several prion starins, including the bse strain in addition, these testosterone viagra dendrimers were able to reduce prpsc accumulation in the spleen by more than routes of application most commonly, dendrimers are applied testosterone viagra as parenteral injections, either directly into the tumor tissue or intravenous for systemic delivery however, recent oral drug delivery studies using testosterone viagra the human colon adenocarcinoma cell line, caco, have indicated that low generation ����� dendrimers cross cell membranes, presumably through a testosterone viagra combination of two processes, ie paracellular transport and adsorptive endocytosis the pglycoprotein pgp efflux transporter does not effect dendrimers, and therefore, drugdendrimer complexes are able to bypass the efflux transporter furthermore, recent work has shown that ����� dendrimers enhanced the bioavailability of testosterone viagra indomethacin in transdermal delivery applications similarly, the drug tamsulosin was used as a model to study transdermal delivery utilizing ����� dendrimers the dendrimers were found to be weak penetration enhancers however, no dendrimerdriven effect was observed for the drugs keto profen and testosterone viagra clonidine as an explanation, dendrimertriggered drug crystallization within the transdermal delivery matrix was discussed, allowing the formation of drug polymorphs that testosterone viagra can or cannot facilitate transdermal delivery several ����� dendrimers generations , and with amine, car boxylate and hydroxyl surface groups were studied testosterone viagra for controlled ocular drug delivery the duration of residence time was evaluated after solubilization of these dendrimers in buffered phosphate testosterone viagra solutions containing parts per thousand wv of fluorescein the new zealand albino rabbit was used as an in vivo model for testosterone viagra qualitative and quantitative assessment of ocular tolerance and retention time, after a single application of il of dendrimer solution to the testosterone viagra eye the same model was also used to determine the prolonged miotic or mydriatic activities of dendrimer solutions, some containing pilocarpine nitrate and some tropicamide, respectively residence time was longer for the solutions containing dendrimers with carboxylic and hydroxyl surface groups no testosterone viagra prolongation of remanence time was observed when dendrimer concentration increased the remanence time of ����� dendrimer solutions on the cornea showed size and molecular weight dependency this study allowed novel macromolecular carriers to be designed with prolonged drug residence time for the ophthalmic route biocompatibility of dendrimers dendrimers have to exhibit low toxicity and be nonimmunogenic in order to be widely used in testosterone viagra biomedical applications to date, the cytotoxicity of dendrimers has been primarily studied in vitro, however, a few in vivo studies testosterone viagra have been published as observed for other cationic macromolecules, including liposomes and micelles, dendrimers with positively charged surface groups are prone testosterone viagra to destabilize cell membranes and cause cell lysis for example, in vitro cytotoxicity ic measurements ie the concentration where of cell testosterone viagra lysis is observed for amino terminated ����� dendrimers revealed significant cytotoxicity on human intestinal adenocarcinoma caco cells, furthermore, the cytotoxicity was testosterone viagra found to be generationdependent, with higher generation dendrimers being the most toxic a similar generation dependence of aminoterminated ����� dendrimers was testosterone viagra observed for the haemolytic effect, studied on a solution of rat blood cells however, some recent studies have shown that aminoterminated testosterone viagra ����� dendrimers exhibit lower toxicity than more flexible aminofunctionalized linear polymers perhaps due to lower adherence of the rigid globular dendrimers testosterone viagra to cellular surfaces the degree of substitution, as well as the type of amine functionality, is important, with primary amines being how to get ephedrine from pseudoephedrine testosterone viagra more toxic than secondary or tertiary amines aminoterminated ppi and ����� dendrimers behave similarly with regard to cytotoxicity and haemolytic testosterone viagra effects, including the generationdependent increase of both comparative toxicity studies on anionic carboxylateterminated and cationic aminoterminated ����� dendrimers using caco cells testosterone viagra have shown a significantly lower cytotoxicity of the anionic compounds in fact, lower generation ����� dendrimers possessing carboxylate surface groups show neither haema totoxicity nor cytotoxicity at concentrations up to mgml the biocompatability of dendrimers is not solely determined by the surface testosterone viagra groups dendrimers containing an aromatic polyether core and anionic carboxylate surface groups have shown to be haemolytic on a solution of testosterone viagra rat blood cells after hrs it is suggested that the aromatic interior of the dendrimer may cause haemolysis through hydrophobic membrane testosterone viagra contact one way to reduce the cytotoxicity of cationic dendrimers may reside in partial surface derivatization with chemically inert functionalities such as peg or fatty acids the cytotoxicity towards caco cells can be reduced significantly from ic mm to lmm after testosterone viagra such a modification this observation can be explained by the reduced overall positive charge of these surfacemodified dendrimers apartial derivatization with as few as six lipid chains or four peg chains on a gpamam, respectively, was sufficient to lower the cytotoxicity substantially testosterone viagra in studies conducted at dendritic nano technologies, inc using caco and two other cell lines, it was found that besides partial testosterone viagra pegylation of the surface, surface modification with pyrrolidone, another biocompatible compound, can significantly reduce cytotoxicity to levels far better than those testosterone viagra of currently available products in some cases, the cytotoxicity of ����� dendrimers could be reduced by additives such as fetal calf testosterone viagra serum only a few systematic studies on the in vivo toxicity of dendrimers have been reported so far upon injection into mice, doses of mgkg of ����� dendrimers up to g = , displaying either unmodified or modified aminoterminated surfaces, did not appear testosterone viagra to be toxic hydroxy or methoxyterminated dendrimers based on a polyester dendrimer scaffold have been shown to be of low toxicity both in vitro and in vivo at very high concentrations mgml, these polyester dendrimers induced some inhibition of cell growth testosterone viagra in vitro, but no increase in cell death was observed upon injection into mice, no acute or longterm toxicity problems were observed the nontoxic properties make these new dendritic motifs very promising candidates for drug delivery devices initial immunogenicity studies performed on testosterone viagra unmodified aminoterminated ����� dendrimers showed no or weak immunogenicity of the gg dendrimers however, later studies indicated some immunogenicity of these testosterone viagra dendrimers, which could be reduced by surfacemodification utilizing peg chains conclusions the high level of control over the architecture of dendrimers, testosterone viagra their size, shape, branching length and density, and their surface functionality, makes these compounds ideal carriers in drug delivery applications the testosterone viagra bioactive agents may either be encapsulated into the interior of the dendrimers or they may be chemically attached or physically adsorbed testosterone viagra onto the dendrimer surface, with the option to tailor the properties of the carrier to the specific needs of the testosterone viagra active material and its therapeutic applications furthermore, the high density of surface groups allows attachment of targeting groups as well as groups that modify the solution behavior or toxicity of dendrimers surfacemodified dendrimers themselves may act as nanodrugs against tumors, bacteria and testosterone viagra viruses this review of drug delivery applications of dendrimers clearly illustrates the potential of this new fourth architectural class of polymers testosterone viagra and substantiates the high optimism for the future of dendrimers in this important field acknowledgments the authors wish to thank all contributors to this fascinating field of research, as well as the funding agents that have supported this work over the years testosterone viagra in particular, dnt would like to acknowledge current funding by the us army research laboratory arl contract # wnf references svenson testosterone viagra s controlling surfactant selfassembly curr opin coll interf sci svenson s selfassembly and selforganization important processes � but can we predict them?