Browsing by Subject "seulonta"

Screening of drugs of abuse has to combine sensitivity, selectivity and repeatability. The conventional screening methods include immunoassay screening followed by a more sensitive confirmation method. The aim of the study was to develop a simple, yet sensitive sample preparation method for screening of benzodiazepines and amphetamine derivatives in urine samples with silicon micropillar array electrospray ionization chip (µPESI) coupled to mass spectrometric analysis. Another aim was to evaluate the suitability of µPESI in biological sample analysis. Ideally, the developed method would provide an alternative to immunoassay screening method in forensic urine analysis. The sample preparation methods were separately optimized for benzodiazepines and amphetamine derivatives. Methods used included solid- phase extraction with Oasis HLB cartridge and C18-phase containing ZipTip®-pipette tip, liquid-liquid extraction, and dilution and filtering without prior extraction. Optimization focused, however, on ZipTip®-extraction. The compounds were spiked in blank urine to their cut-off levels, 200 ng/ml for benzodiazepines and 300 ng/ml for amphetamine derivatives. For benzodiazepines, every extraction phase was optimized. The sample pH was adjusted to 5, the ZipTip® phase was conditioned with acetonitrile and washed with a mixture of water (pH 5) and acetonitrile (10 % v/v) and the sample was eluted with a mixture of acetonitrile, formic acid and water (95:1:4 v/v/v). For amphetamine derivatives, pH values of sample and solvents were optimized. The sample pH was adjusted to 10, the ZipTip® phase was conditioned with a mixture of water and ammoniumbicarbonate (pH 10, 1:1 v/v), washed with a mixture of water and acetonitrile (1:5 v/v) and the sample was eluted with methanol. The optimized methods were tested with authentic urine samples obtained from Yhtyneet Medix Laboratories and compared to the results of quantitative GC/MS analysis. Benzodiazepine samples were hydrolyzed prior to extraction to improve recovery. All samples were measured with Q-TOF Micro apparatus and hydrolyzed benzodiazepine samples additionally with microTOF apparatus in Yhtyneet Medix Laboratories. Based on the results the developed method needs more optimization to function properly. The main problems were lack of reproducibility and poor sample ionization. Manual sample preparation and adding to the chip sample introduction spot increased variation. Authentic benzodiazepine samples gave false negative and authentic amphetamine derivative samples false positive results. False negatives may be due to the lack of sensitivity and false positives due to the contamination of sample cone, chips or solvents.

During and after myocardial infarction, millions to a billion cells die off. Scar tissue formed by fibroblasts replaces the injured myocardium during recovery. While the newly formed tissue is durable and prevents rupture of the heart, it doesn´t contribute to pump function. Depending on the extent of cardiomyocyte loss, the remaining functional myocardium get strained. Adult mammalian heart has inadequate capacity to regenerate after such injury. In case of sustained substantial increase in workload, the compensatory mechanisms turn into pathological processes including excessive fibrosis and myocyte apoptosis. The progressive decline of hearts contractile function results in heart failure (HF). Current drug treatments for managing HF aim to prevent progression of the disease and relieve symptoms. ACE inhibitors, beta blockers and diuretics are effective along with healthy lifestyle. No practical treatments are available to restore cardiac function yet. Human myocardium normally regenerates, but only 1% or less of myocytes get replaced yearly. Heart’s resident stem/progenitor cells (CPCs) likely play a role in the turnover. The aim of this study was to develop a screening method to identify small molecules that possibly promote differentiation of cardiac progenitor cells to cardiomyocytes. Cell population differentiated from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) was used as a model for CPCs. Directed differentiation protocol of mESCs used here promotes commitment to cells of cardiac mesoderm, part of which will further differentiate to cardiac progenitors. The resulting population at day 6 is heterogenous but many of these cells are progenitors that turn into cardiomyocytes (CMs) by day 8. 10 000 cells per well are plated on 384 well plates at day 5. Test compounds are added at day 6 and removed day 8 for effect in progenitors and day 7-9 for effect in early cardiomyocytes. 0,1% DMSO is used as vehicle and Wnt pathway inhibitor XAV939 as positive control. The effects are quantified with plate reader on day 9. E14 derived mESC reporter line was used. Myl2v-eGFP + SMyHC3-RFP double reporter line allows the specific identification of ventricular CMs with green fluorescence and atrial CMs with red fluorescence. Plate reader measures the total fluorescence of the wells at 485/520nm on day 9, which is used as a readout for ventricular CMs. The fluorescence intensity depends on the amount of GFP+ cells but also on the level of Myl2v expression. Atrial CMs could be quantified similarly but the population doesn´t contain enough RFP+ cells. The assay was shown to reliably point out ‘hits’ that have a strong effect. Any compounds that only produce a moderate effect could be a false negative, however. The effect on cardiac progenitors could likely be increased by simply adding the compounds earlier on day 5. Variability of key reagents causes the main technical troubles through unpredictably affecting cytokine concentrations which decreases the amount of cardiac progenitors. Partially similar screening assays are being used by the big pharma where they cryopreserve progenitors in bulk for later use, thus simplifying and speeding up their method. Same approach could be adopted.