By typical manufacturing techniques, microparticles
are simple, spherical, homogenous structures with little feature of interest.
This is, effectively, the only configuration possible by conventional
emulsion-type manufacturing techniques. There are a great deal of potential
applications for developing microparticles which do not obey this simple shape.
Recently, researchers at Johns Hopkins University used PLGA (PolyVivo AP087)
from PolySciTech (www.polyscitech.com)
to develop oblong-shaped microparticles with a carefully controlled coating of
a lipid shell bearing various moieties. They investigated the interactions of
these particles with cells and proteins and found that ellipsoid particles were
resistant to macrophage uptake as well as had several other interesting
features. This research holds promise for the development of advanced
drug-delivery platforms as well as for other biomedical applications. Read
more: Meyer, Randall A., Mohit P. Mathew, Elana Ben-Akiva, Joel C. Sunshine,
Ron B. Shmueli, Qiuyin Ren, Kevin J. Yarema, and Jordan J. Green.
"Anisotropic Biodegradable Lipid Coated Particles for Spatially Dynamic
Protein Presentation." Acta Biomaterialia (2018). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706118301880
“Abstract: There has been growing interest in the use
of particles coated with lipids for applications ranging from drug delivery,
gene delivery, and diagnostic imaging to immunoengineering. To date, almost all
particles with lipid coatings have been spherical despite emerging evidence
that non-spherical shapes can provide important advantages including reduced
non-specific elimination and increased target-specific binding. We combine
control of core particle geometry with control of particle surface
functionality by developing anisotropic, biodegradable ellipsoidal particles
with lipid coatings. We demonstrate that these lipid coated ellipsoidal
particles maintain advantageous properties of lipid polymer hybrid particles,
such as the ability for modular protein conjugation to the particle surface
using versatile bioorthogonal ligation reactions. In addition, they exhibit
biomimetic membrane fluidity and demonstrate lateral diffusive properties
characteristic of natural membrane proteins. These ellipsoidal particles
simultaneously provide benefits of non-spherical particles in terms of
stability and resistance to non-specific phagocytosis by macrophages as well as
enhanced targeted binding. These biomaterials provide a novel and flexible
platform for numerous biomedical applications. Statement of Significance: The
research reported here documents the ability of non-spherical polymeric
particles to be coated with lipids to form anisotropic biomimetic particles. In
addition, we demonstrate that these lipid-coated biodegradable polymeric
particles can be conjugated to a wide variety of biological molecules in a
“click-like” fashion. This is of interest due to the multiple types of cellular
mimicry enabled by this biomaterial based technology. These features include
mimicry of the highly anisotropic shape exhibited by cells, surface
presentation of membrane bound protein mimetics, and lateral diffusivity of
membrane bound substrates comparable to that of a plasma membrane. This
platform is demonstrated to facilitate targeted cell binding while being
resistant to non-specific cellular uptake. Such a platform could allow for
investigations into how physical parameters of a particle and its surface
affect the interface between biomaterials and cells, as well as provide
biomimetic technology platforms for drug delivery and cellular engineering. Keywords:
Lipids; Polymers; Membrane fluidity; Particle shape; Biomimetic”
BPCR conference (August 29, 2018 9AM - 4PM: Kurz Purdue Technology Center,
West Lafayette, IN) is a free, 1-day scientific networking conference hosted by
Akina, Inc. which focuses on research companies in the biotechnology,
pharmaceutical, medical, and broader life-science fields. See more at BPCRconference.com
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