I intend to do some experiments with curcumin. If someone know the best way to dissolve this chemical for rat diet as well as for tissue culture application.

We dissolve our curcumin analogs in molecular biology grade DMSO for cell culture applications.

but be careful with DMSO in tissue culture
do not exceed a concentration of 1-2 (3=absolute maximum!!!) per mille

1-2 what unit were you refering to?

jim

I try not to use more than 0.1% DMSO conc in the final solution. I believe it is safe to go up to 0.5% if necessary. Just do a negative control with DMSO and no drug to confirm this. Of course the more concentrated you make your stock solution the easier it is to achieve a low final DMSO concentration.

Here are some methods for your rodents

1) Curcumin is dissolved in Me2SO, and then ethanol is added and mixed with PBS (for 1 mg per 100 l of curcumin solution containing 5.4 lofMe2SO, 44.6 l of ethanol, and 50 l of PBS, pH 7.2). During brief anesthesia with halothane, a 25-gauge feeding needle (or PE-90 tubing) is used to infuse 45 mg/kg curcumin into the mouse stomach daily for 3 days, with the final dose delivered 2 h before the measurement of nasal PDs.

2) Curcumin powder is mixed with Alimentum (50 mg/ml) and sonicated for 30 s just before oral delivery by presenting the liquid at the tip of an Eppendorf pipette to non-anesthetized mice. The presented liquid is rapidly ingested by most mice. Curcumin is given at 0, 45, or 100 mg/kg three times a day for 3 days, with the final dose delivered 2 h before the measurement of nasal PDs.

3) The third method is the same as the second one, except that Peptamen is used instead of Alimentum as the delivery vehicle.


See - J Biol Chem. 2004 Sep 24;279(39):40629-33
and Egan, M. E., et al (2004) Science 304, 600602

Are you intersted in the CFTR rescue or do you have another intersting application for the spice?

You can go up to 1% DMSO in cell culture, although I have noticed certain cells lines are less tolerant of this than others.

For the sigma product (C-1386), both alcohol and DMSO work for solubility