Università della Svizzera italiana

Explaining the microtubule energy balance : contributions due to dipole moments, charges, van der Waals and solvation energy

Ayoub, Ahmed Taha ; Staelens, Michael ; Prunotto, Alessio ; Deriu, Marco A. ; Danani, Andrea ; Klobukowski, Mariusz ; Tuszynski, Jack Adam

In: International journal of molecular sciences, 2017, vol. 18, no. 10, p. 2042

Microtubules are the main components of mitotic spindles, and are the pillars of the cellular cytoskeleton. They perform most of their cellular functions by virtue of their unique dynamic instability processes which alternate between polymerization and depolymerization phases. This in turn is driven by a precise balance between attraction and repulsion forces between the constituents of...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Conformational dynamics and stability of U-shaped and S-shaped amyloid β assemblies

Grasso, Gianvito ; Rebella, Martina ; Muscat, Stefano ; Morbiducci, Umberto ; Tuszynski, Jack ; Danani, Andrea ; Deriu, Marco A.

In: International journal of molecular sciences, 2018, vol. 19, no. 2, p. 571

Alzheimer’s disease is the most fatal neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the aggregation and deposition of Amyloid β (Aβ) oligomers in the brain of patients. Two principal variants of Aβ exist in humans: Aβ1–40 and Aβ1–42. The former is the most abundant in the plaques, while the latter is the most toxic species and forms fibrils more rapidly. Interestingly, fibrils of...

Università della Svizzera italiana

A novel interaction between the TLR7 and a colchicine derivative revealed through a computational and experimental study

Gentile, Francesco ; Deriu, Marco A. ; Barakat, Khaled ; Danani, Andrea ; Tuszynski, Jack

In: Pharmaceuticals, 2018, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 22

The Toll-Like Receptor 7 (TLR7) is an endosomal membrane receptor involved in the innate immune system response. Its best-known small molecule activators are imidazoquinoline derivatives such as imiquimod (R-837) and resiquimod (R-848). Recently, an interaction between R-837 and the colchicine binding site of tubulin was reported. To investigate the possibility of an interaction between...

Università della Svizzera italiana

Effect of lactose pseudopolymorphic transition on the aerosolization performance of drug/carrier mixtures

Della Bella, Andrea ; Müller, Michele ; Danani, Andrea ; Soldati, Luciano ; Bettini, Ruggero

In: Pharmaceutics, 2019, vol. 11, no. 11, p. 576

Physico-chemical properties of lactose are key factors in adhesive mixtures used as dry powder inhaler (DPI). Despite the abundant literature on this topic, the effect of the polymorphism and pseudo-polymorphism of lactose has been seldom investigated and discussed although often lactose used in DPI is subjected to unit operations, which may alter its solid-state properties. Here, we studied...