Person:

Farokhzad, Omid

A novel FRET-bearing poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) conjugate fluoresces at 520 nm when it is cleaved off from nanoparticles (NPs). When the NPs were targeted to cancer cell lines, the reducing redox of the endosomal compartment caused disulfide bond cleavage and shedding of the PEG layer. The fluorescence emission can be suppressed by N-ethylmaleimide to inhibit disulfide cleavage and restored by dithiothreitol, a disulfide cleavage reagent, indicating a direct correlation between fluorescence emission and PEG shedding.

Microfluidic synthesis of nanoparticles (NPs) can enhance the controllability and reproducibility in physicochemical properties of NPs compared to bulk synthesis methods. However, applications of microfluidic synthesis are typically limited to in vitro studies due to low production rates. Herein, we report the parallelization of NP synthesis by 3D hydrodynamic flow focusing (HFF) using a multilayer microfluidic system to enhance the production rate without losing the advantages of reproducibility, controllability, and robustness. Using parallel 3D HFF, polymeric poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-b-polyethyleneglycol (PLGA-PEG) NPs with sizes tunable in the range of 13–150 nm could be synthesized reproducibly with high production rate. As a proof of concept, we used this system to perform in vivo pharmacokinetic and biodistribution study of small (20 nm diameter) PLGA-PEG NPs that are otherwise difficult to synthesize. Microfluidic parallelization thus enables synthesis of NPs with tunable properties with production rates suitable for both in vitro and in vivo studies.

Bacteria have shown a remarkable ability to overcome drug therapy if there is a failure to achieve sustained bactericidal concentration or if there is a reduction in activity in situ. The latter can be caused by localized acidity, a phenomenon that can occur as a result of the combined actions of bacterial metabolism and the host immune response. Nanoparticles (NP) have shown promise in treating bacterial infections, but a significant challenge has been to develop antibacterial NPs that may be suitable for systemic administration. Herein we develop drug-encapsulated, pH-responsive, surface charge-switching poly(D, L-lactic-co-glycolic acid)-b-poly(L-histidine)-b-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLGA-PLH-PEG) nanoparticles for treating bacterial infections. These NP drug carriers are designed to shield nontarget interactions at pH 7.4 but bind avidly to bacteria in acidity, delivering drugs and mitigating in part the loss of drug activity with declining pH. The mechanism involves pH-sensitive NP surface charge-switching, which is achieved by selective protonation of the imidazole groups of PLH at low pH. NP binding studies demonstrate pH-sensitive NP binding to bacteria with a 3.5±0.2 to 5.8±0.1 fold increase in binding to bacteria at pH 6.0 compared to 7.4. Further, PLGA-PLH-PEG-encapsulated vancomycin demonstrates reduced loss of efficacy at low pH, with an increase in minimum inhibitory concentration of 1.3-fold as compared to 2.0-fold and 2.3-fold for free- and PLGA-PEG-encapsulated vancomycin, respectively. The PLGA-PLH-PEG NPs described herein are a first step towards developing systemically administered drug carriers that can target and potentially treat Gram-positive, Gram-negative, or polymicrobial infections associated with acidity.

The engineering of drug-encapsulated targeted nanoparticles (NPs) has the potential to revolutionize drug therapy. A major challenge for the smooth translation of targeted NPs to the clinic has been developing methods for the prediction and optimization of the NP surface composition, especially when targeting ligands (TL) of different chemical properties are involved in the NP self-assembly process. Here we investigated the self-assembly and properties of two different targeted NPs decorated with two widely used TLs that have different water solubilities, and developed methods to characterize and optimize NP surface composition. We synthesized two different biofunctional polymers composed of poly(lactide-co-glycolide)-b-polyethyleneglycol-RGD (PLGA-PEG-RGD, high water solubility TL) and PLGA-PEG-Folate (low water solubility TL). Targeted NPs with different ligand densities were prepared by mixing TL-conjugated polymers with non-conjugated PLGA-PEG at different ratios through nanoprecipitation. The NP surface composition was quantified and the results revealed two distinct nanoparticle assembly behaviors: for the case of PLGA-PEG-RGD, nearly all RGD molecules conjugated to the polymer were found to be on the surface of the NPs. In contrast, only ~20% of the folate from PLGA-PEG-Folate was present on the NP surface while the rest remained presumably buried in the PLGA NP core due to hydrophobic interactions of PLGA and folate. Finally, in vitro phagocytosis and cell targeting of NPs was investigated, from which a window of NP formulations exhibiting minimum uptake by macrophages and maximum uptake by targeted cells was determined. These results underscore the impact the ligand chemical properties have on the targeting capabilities of self-assembled targeted nanoparticles and provide an engineering strategy for improving their targeting specificity.

Targeted cancer therapy allows the delivery of therapeutic agents to cancer cells without incurring undesirable side effects on the neighboring healthy tissues. Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in the development of advanced cancer therapeutics using targeted nanoparticles. Here we describe the preparation of drug-encapsulated nanoparticles formulated with biocompatible and biodegradable poly(D,L-lactic-co-glycolic acid)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLGA-b-PEG) copolymer and surface functionalized with the A10 2-fluoropyrimidine ribonucleic acid aptamers that recognize the extracellular domain of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), a well-characterized antigen expressed on the surface of prostate cancer cells. We show that the self-assembled nanoparticles can selectively bind to PSMA-targeted prostate cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. This formulation method may contribute to the development of highly selective and effective cancer therapeutic and diagnostic devices.

Currently, there is no cure and no preventive vaccine for HIV/AIDS. Combination antiretroviral therapy has dramatically improved treatment, but it has to be taken for a lifetime, has major side effects and is ineffective in patients in whom the virus develops resistance. Nanotechnology is an emerging multidisciplinary field that is revolutionizing medicine in the 21st century. It has a vast potential to radically advance the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. In this review, we discuss the challenges with the current treatment of the disease and shed light on the remarkable potential of nanotechnology to provide more effective treatment and prevention for HIV/AIDS by advancing antiretroviral therapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy, vaccinology and microbicides.

Aim: Two unexplored aspects for irinotecan and cisplatin (I&C) combination chemotherapy are (1) actively targeting both drugs to a specific diseased cell type and (2) delivering both drugs on the same vehicle to ensure their synchronized entry into the cell at a well-defined ratio. In this work we report the use of targeted polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) to co-encapsulate and deliver I&C to cancer cells expressing the Prostate Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA).

Method: We prepared targeted NPs in a single-step by mixing four different precursors inside microfluidic devices.

Results: I&C were encapsulated in 55-nm NPs and showed an 8-fold increase in internalization by PSMA-expressing LNCaP cells compared to non-targeted NPs. NPs co-encapsulating both drugs exhibited strong synergism in LNCaP cells with a combination index of 0.2.

Conclusion: The strategy of co-encapsulating both irinotecan and cisplatin in a single NP targeted to a specific cell type could potentially be used to treat different types of cancer.