PolySciTech PLGA-rhodamine used as part of lung nanoparticle delivery research

One pathway for medicinal delivery is inhalation which exposes lung tissues to the inhaled substance. Nanoparticles can also be applied this way as they are small enough to disperse in air and allow for uptake by breathing. Recently, researchers utilized PLGA-rhodamine (PolyVivo Cat# AV011) from PolySciTech (www.polyscitech.com) in order to render their surface-decorated nanoparticles fluorescent to enable tracking of the particle uptake and fate. This research holds promise for elucidating the mechanisms of lung-uptake of inhaled nanoparticles. Read more: Ruge, Christian Arnold, Herve Hillaireau, Nadege Grabowski, Moritz Beck-Broichsitter, Olga Canadas, Nicolas Tsapis, Cristina Casals, Julien Nicolas, and Elias Fattal. "Pulmonary Surfactant Protein A–Mediated Enrichment of Surface-Decorated Polymeric Nanoparticles in Alveolor Macrophages." Molecular Pharmaceutics (2016). http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.6b00773

“Abstract: Surfactant protein A (SP-A), a lung anti-infective protein, is a lectin with affinity for sugars found on fungal and micrococcal surfaces such as mannose. We synthesized a mannosylated poly(lactic acid)-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLA-PEG) co-polymer and used it to produce nanoparticles with a polyester (PLGA/PLA) core and a PEG shell decorated with mannose residues, designed to be strongly associated with SP-A for an increased uptake by alveolar macrophages. Nanoparticles made of the co-polymers were obtained by nanoprecipation and displayed a size of around 140 nm. The presence of mannose on the surface was demonstrated by zeta potential changes according to pH and by a strong aggregation in the presence of concanavalin A. Mannosylated nanoparticles bound to SP-A as demonstrated by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. The association with SP-A increased nanoparticle uptake by THP-1 macrophages in vitro. In vivo experiments demonstrated that after intratracheal administration of nanoparticles with or without SP-A, SP-A-coated mannosylated nanoparticles were internalized by alveolar macrophages in greater proportion than SP-A-coated non-mannosylated nanoparticles. The data demonstrate for the first time that the pool of nanoparticles available to lung cells can be changed after surface modification, using a biomimetic approach.”