PLGA-Rhodamine from Akina, Inc. used in development of fluorescently traceable nanoparticles for biological interaction research

 

The way particles interact with cells and bodily systems greatly impacts their behavior for biomedical applications. Researchers at Université Paris-Saclay used PLGA-Rhodamine (cat# AV011) from PolySciTech division of Akina, Inc. (www.polyscitech.com) to create fluorescent nanoparticles with a variety of sizes and shapes. They tested these for their cell interactions. This research holds promise to improve nanoformulations for drug-delivery applications in the future. Read more: Robin, Baptiste, Ludivine Mousnier, Hung Lê, Nadège Grabowski, David Chapron, Ophélie Bellance-Mina, Nicolas Huang, Florence Agnely, Elias Fattal, and Nicolas Tsapis. "PLA-PEG forming worm-like nanoparticles despite unfavorable packing parameter: formation mechanism, thermal stability and potential for cell internalization." International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2023): 123263. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037851732300683X

“Most nanoparticles produced for drug delivery purposes are spherical. However, the literature suggests that elongated particles are advantageous, notably in terms of cellular uptake. Thus, we synthesized biocompatible polylactide-b-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLA-PEG) polymers bearing carboxylate moieties, and used them to formulate worm-like nanoparticles by a simple emulsion-evaporation process. Worm-like nanoparticles with variable aspect ratio were obtained by simply adjusting the molar mass of the PLA block: the shorter the molar mass of the PLA block, the more elongated the particles. As PLA molar mass decreased from 80,000 g/mol to 13,000 g/mol, the proportion of worm-like nanoparticles increased from 0 to 46%, in contradiction with the usual behavior of block polymers based on their packing parameter. To explain this unusual phenomenon, we hypothesized the shape arises from a combination of steric and electrostatic repulsions between PEG chains bearing a carboxylate moiety present at the dichloromethane-water interface during the evaporation process. Worm-like particles turned out to be unstable when incubated at 37 °C, above polymer glass transition temperature. Indeed, above Tg, a Plateau-Rayleigh instability occurs, leading to the division of the worm-like particles into spheres. However, this instability was slow enough to assess worm-like particles uptake by murine macrophages. A slight but significant increase of internalization was observed for worm-like particles, compared to their spherical counterparts, confirming the interest of developing biocompatible anisotropic nanoparticles for pharmaceutical applications such as drug delivery.”