Drug-Biomembrane Interaction Studies

by Pignatello

• ISBN13: 9781907568053
• ISBN10: 1907568050
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-10-31
• Publisher: Elsevier Science

Summary

The design and development of drugs and new pharmaceutical formulations require a full characterization of the chemical and physicochemical events occurring at the level of the single active ingredients or excipients, as well as their reciprocal interaction. Thermal analysis techniques are among the most widely used methods to achieve this; among them, the Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) technique, in which the thermotropic behaviour of a single substance or mixtures is analyzed as a function of a controlled temperature program. DSC is an accurate and rapid thermo-analytical technique, widely used by the pharmaceutical industry and in drug research to investigate several physico-chemical phenomena, such as polymorphism, melting and crystallization, purity, and drug-excipient interaction; as well as to characterize biomolecules like peptides, proteins, and genetic material. However, further peculiar applications of DSC in biomedical research are also possible, not all of which have yet been explored. For instance, DSC can be a very powerful tool and source of a large amount of information to study the interactions between drugs and cell membranes - at both the qualitative and quantitative levels, and using either eukaryotic or bacterial cell membranes, as well as different biomembrane models. In fact, the 3-D nature of these systems allows us to put into evidence the different possible mechanisms and degrees of interactions between a biologically active molecule and biomembranes, with potential far surpassing that of 2-D (i.e., solvent-solvent) experimental approaches.