Hi Alice

Stearylamin has been described as a toxic agents to cells. Normally, I would be concerned about the terminal amine, whose toxicity is directly linked to hemolysis of red blood cells in cell-penetrating peptides. However that's mostly truth for guanidines rather than the amine we have in Stearylamin.

In that case, the explanation of Stearylamin toxicity possibly lies in the combination of the positively charged amine (which acts as a first anchor to cell membranes - specially those containing posphatidylserine in the outer leaflet) and the very long alkyl chain which is highly hydrophobic/lipophillic.

I have a suggestion to test this out, adressing those amines as an issue. Try adding heparin to your positively charged-cyclodextrins and check if you can see a reduction in their cytotoxic potential. If so, you will know that the negative charges present in heparin sulphonate groups. This is an actual procedure to inactivate poly-arginine (positively charges) peptides. :)

Hope that helps!

Best,

Andre

Article Interaction of positively-charged liposomes with blood: Impl...

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Hi Andre,

Sorry for the delay, and thank you very much for your answer and the two articles.

Thanks a lot for your information and your experimental suggestion. I will try and let's see.

Regards,

Alice