Lawesson’s reagent acts as an efficient promoter in the solvent-free microwave-assisted synthesis of 2-substituted benzoxazoles from carboxylic acids and 2-aminophenol, and thus, constitutes a general synthetic method for these compounds. This new application of Lawesson’s reagent is valid also for benzothiazoles with very high efficiency level. A variety of aromatic, heteroaromatic and aliphatic carboxylic acids react under the conditions developed with good yields in all cases. Thiobenzoic acid is a good alternative for microwave-assisted synthesis of 2-phenylbenzoxazole and 2-phenylbenzothiazole in the absence of solvents.

The development of an effective HIV vaccine continues to be a major health challenge since, so far, only the RV144 trial has demonstrated a modest clinical efficacy. Recently, the targeting of the 12 highly conserved protease cleavage sites (PCS1-12) has been presented as a strategy seeking to hamper the maturation and infectivity of HIV. To pursue this line of research, and because peptide antigens have low immunogenicity, we have included these peptides in engineered nanoparticles, aiming at overcoming this limitation. More specifically, we investigated whether the covalent attachment of a PCS peptide (PCS5) to polysaccharide-based nanoparticles, and their co-administration with polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly(I:C)), improved the generated immune response. To this end, PCS5 was first conjugated to two different polysaccharides (chitosan and hyaluronic acid), through either a stable or a cleavable bond, and then associated to an oppositely-charged polymer (dextran sulfate and chitosan) and poly(I:C) to form the nanoparticles. Nanoparticles associating PCS5 by ionic interactions were used in this study as the control formulation. In vivo, all nanosystems elicited high anti-PCS5 antibodies. Nanoparticles containing PCS5 conjugated and poly(I:C) seemed to induce the strongest activation of antigen presenting cells. Interestingly, T cell activation presented different kinetics depending on the prototype. These findings show that both, the nanoparticle composition and the conjugation of the HIV peptide antigen, may play an important role in the generation of humoral and cellular responses.

The importance of polymeric nanocarriers in the field of drug delivery is ever-increasing, and the accurate characterization of their properties is paramount to understand and predict their behavior. Asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) is a fractionation technique that has gained considerable attention for its gentle separation conditions, broad working range, and versatility. AF4 can be hyphenated to a plurality of concentration and size detectors, thus permitting the analysis of the multifunctionality of nanomaterials. Despite this potential, the practical information that can be retrieved by AF4 and its possible applications are still rather unfamiliar to the pharmaceutical scientist. This review was conceived as a primer that clearly states the “do’s and don’ts” about AF4 applied to the characterization of polymeric nanocarriers. Aside from size characterization, AF4 can be beneficial during formulation optimization, for drug loading and drug release determination and for the study of interactions among biomaterials. It will focus mainly on the advances made in the last 5 years, as well as indicating the problematics on the consensus, which have not been reached yet. Methodological recommendations for several case studies will be also included.Graphical abstract