Quinine sulphate

Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM), heat-inactivated low-endotoxin fetal bovine serum (FBS), and gentamicin purchased from Cambrex (Walkersville MD, USA) for tissue culture. All other cancer cell lines were purchased from American Type Culture Collection (Manassas, VA, USA). Most of these following compounds (thiostrepton, ampicillin, dexamethasone, 2-methoxyestradiol, (−) riboflavin, ascorbic acid, amiloride-HCL, (−) Corey lactone, and quinine sulphate) were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich Chemical Co. (St. Louis, MO, USA), and quercetin was purchased from Alfa Aesar (Johnson Matthey Co. Lancastor, UK). The 50% purified δ-tocotrienol fraction from annatto seeds was purchased from American River (Boston, MA, USA). RNeasy mini kit was purchased from QIAGEN Sciences (Germantown, MD, USA). DeltaGold (125 mg soft gels) from annatto seeds (composition 90% δ-tocotrienol + 10% γ-tocotrienol) was obtained as a gift by American River Nutrition, Inc. (Hadley, MA. USA). The hepatitis C antibody test kit was purchased from Sigma Chemical Co., St. Louis, USA. The second kit for diagnosing hepatitis C test is RNA (PCR) test. Pure total mRNA was obtained from the EDTA treated fresh whole blood using total RNA purification kit # 17200 (NORGEN Bioteck Corporation, Thorold, ON, Canada).

CMCs were purchased from Waris Nove Company, Balok, Malaysia. The analytical-grade of LPEI (Mn ~5000) and quinine sulphate were obtained from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA). MgSO₄, MnSO₄, ZnSO₄, CaCl₂, CdCl₂, HgCl₂, FeCl₃, FeCl₂, PbNO₃, NaOH, HCl, NaCl, AlCl₃, KCl, BaCl₂, LiCl, AgNO₃, CoCl₂, NiCl₂, CuNO₃ and PVA were purchased from R and M marketing, Selangor, Malaysia. Throughout the preparation of the solution, deionised water (DI) with a resistivity of 18.25 MΩ cm was used.

Fluorescence quantum yield (Φ_F) determinations were performed using a duplex- or single-strand concentration of 9.5 µM (± 0.5 µM) and 60–100 µL sample volume in a 3.0 mm × 3.0 mm path length quartz cuvette. For the duplex samples (the RNA-bound gapmers), a 30–40% molar excess of RNA was applied to promote full hybridization. For the FBA-labeled gapmers, Φ_F was determined relative to a solution of quinine sulphate (Sigma) in 0.5 M H₂SO₄ (Φ_F,REF = 55%^{50 (link)}). For the Cy3-labeled gapmer, a solution of Rhodamine 6G (Sigma) in ethanol (Φ_F,REF = 95%^{50 (link)}) was used. Quantum yields were calculated according to: $${\mathrm{\Phi }}_F={\mathrm{\Phi }}_{F,REF}\times \frac{\int I_S\left(\lambda \right)d\lambda }{\int I_{\mathit{REF}}\left(\lambda \right)d\lambda }\times \frac{A_{\mathit{REF}}}{A_s}\times \frac{{\eta }_S^2}{{\eta }_{\mathit{REF}}^2}$$
where I_S(λ) and I_REF(λ) denote the emission intensity of the sample and reference, respectively. The absorption at the excitation wavelength for the samples (A_S) and reference (A_REF) under the applied conditions were in the interval 0.004–0.05, to ensure negligible inner filter effects. The adopted solvent refractive index for the sample was η_S = 1.333 (phosphate buffer), while the corresponding values for the references were η_REF = 1.339 (for 0.5 M H₂SO₄) and η_REF = 1.360 (for ethanol). The reported quantum yields are given as mean ± standard deviation of two independent replicates.