A recent study done by the University of Eastern Finland and the Anhui Medical University in China shows that a new way to make the coating on nanoparticles used in cancer therapy stronger may help them better target tumors.
Effective cancer therapy requires tumor targeting because it improves the therapeutic result and reduces side effects. Effective targeting is difficult to obtain with nanoparticles (NPs), the current gold standard, coated with synthetic targeting ligands.
The cell membrane (CM) coating technology is a novel strategy to address this issue. The NPs are given a variety of biological features by the CM coating, including effective tumor targeting, immunological evasion, and extended systemic circulation time. The majority of the CM-coated NPs reported in the literature, as measured by a fluorescence quenching assay, were only partially coated, the researchers had previously found. Because the mechanism behind this partial coating is still mostly unknown, it has been hard to improve the coating method and make it more effective at targeting tumors.
A recent work that was published in Nature Communications offers a quick cure for the incomplete CM coating. With the help of phospholipids from outside the cell, this method helps to make the CM more fluid, which makes it easier for nearby CM patches to join together.
Researchers found that partial coating is caused by the adsorption, rupturing, and fusing of CM vesicles. This is the mechanism for the coating process.
According to the results of the computational simulation, CM vesicles can rupture during extrusion, but the membrane fluidity was found to be crucial for securing the partial coating, according to Lizhi Liu, the study’s first author from the University of Eastern Finland.
“External unsaturated phospholipids were then used to promote partial coating by increasing the CM fluidity,” he writes.
According to Dr. Wujun Xu, one of the related authors, “The fixing of partial CM coating greatly boosted the accumulation of NPs in tumor tissue, which was attributable to the enhanced immune evasion and better particular cancer targeting capabilities of fixed biomimetic NPs.”
“Using a variety of core NPs, including mesoporous silica, gold, and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), we have demonstrated the universality of our hybrid coating technique (PLGA). Our discovery ushers in a new era of superior biomimetic nanovector design for advanced tumor targeting, thanks to a profound understanding of the coating mechanism. ” The conclusion is provided by University of Eastern Finland Professor Vesa-Pekka Lehto.
