Reacciones electroquimioluminiscentes y parámetros cielabestudio de la interacción de especies biomédicas en dendrímeros y nanopartículas

Abstract

The present PhD Thesis, formulated under the Thesis by Publications model, constitutes a thorough study of a series of ligand-receptor interactions, which share a number of common traits: receptors (PAMAM dendrimers and citrate-capped nanoparticles) are of a supramolecular nature, present a low toxicity in humans, and their drug carrier capacity has been proven beyond any doubts, while ligands are of biomedical or biological interest, making these studies into an important first step for the knowledge and modulation of those systems and opening up possible research venues for their application in biomedicine. In the course of the research involved in this PhD Thesis two novel methodologies have been developed and tested. The first one is the application of electrogenerated chemiluminiscence reactions (ECL) carried out by addition of PAMAM dendrimers into a sensibilizer solution with no additional coreactants, which allows for the study of both interdendrimic and dendrimer-ligand interactions. This line of research continues the one started by our Research group in 2012. The second methodology has been developed from the start in the course of this PhD Thesis, and focuses in the study of nanoparticle-receptor interactions presenting aggregation-induced color changes by using the colorimetric parameters of the CIELab color system, which allows for the quantification of those changes and for the determination of ligand-receptor binding constants. Finally, the third part of the Thesis covers the influence of both gold and silver nanoparticles over a model ECL system, studying the behavior changes of the common sensibilizer species Ru(bpy)32+ in the presence of highly-charged negative particles.