| dc.description.abstract | Melanin is one of the most ubiquitous biological polymer widespread in our body tissue, and it has been shown that melanin has potential
medical functions against free radicals, reactive oxygen species, tumor,
venin, virus, and heavy metal ions. However, its insolubility drastically
reduces its efficacy. We have shown previously that melanin can be
broken down to become nanometer-sized and water-dispersible by
pulsed-laser photo-fragmentation or by extended mechanical stir.
Through this, the exposed surface area could be increased by many orders of magnitude, dramatically increasing the efficiency of chemical and biological interactions. As a demonstration, we have explored the
efficacy of using the nanonized melanin in protecting cells from reactive
oxygen species.In this master thesis , we will explore the utilization of the nanonized melanin as a chelation agent against toxic metal ions.
In this paper, the possibility of using melanin nanoparticles as a new
kind of chelation agent has been studied. The chelating ability was
characterized by using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission
Spectrometer ( ICP-OES). The cell viability activity were characterized by using flow cytometer and ATP measurement. Result shows the melanin nanoparticles not only can chelate metal ions, more importantly,
but also can recovery cells from harm of Pb2+ ion. First, the chelation
ability of melanin on Pb2+ was studied. Then nanolized melanin was been utilized to in-vitro experiment. it was found the melanin nanoparticles can cure cells from harm of metal ion, but DMSA can not. We hypothesize that the nanolized melanin could diffuse into the cells to spit out lead-ion which had been swallowed by cells, and increase cells ATP. This result indicates that the nanolized melanin did have the possibility of being a new chelating agent. | en_US |