Polyelectrolytes in the development of smart and applied drug delivery bioparticles

Smart nanocarrier-based bioactive delivery systems are a current focus in nanomedicine for allowing and boosting diverse disease treatments. In this context, designed hybrid lipid-polyelectrolyte particles can provide structure-sensitive features for tailored, triggered, and stimuli-responsive devices. We use polyelectrolytes to produce and develop a hybrid lipid cubosome surface modified by complex coacervates of chitosan-N-arginine and alginate as a pH-responsive biopolymers shell, while acemannan, a bioactive polysaccharide from Aloe vera, was encapsulated in the crystalline bioparticle nanochannels core with high efficiency and of prolonged release in simulated gastric and intestinal pH conditions. The bioparticle crystalline phase transition from Im3m to Pn3m cubic symmetry was promoted by interaction with albumin as a structure-responsive behavior in a mimetic gastric cancer medium.1 Moreover, in the intestinal simulated condition, a transition from Im3m cubic to inverse hexagonal HII was unveiled, providing means for triggering bioactive delivery by further shortening the lattice distances in the cubosome water nanochannels and thus water squeezing out.2 The bioparticle’s effective interaction with a lipid membrane of high curvature is thermodynamically driven and in the same membrane of low curvature leads to severe morphological changes on giant vesicles as proof of the fusional process yielding tremendous membrane fluidity alteration, hence providing an instance for the bioparticles encapsulation in new formed relative smaller vesicles and uptake.2 Wholly, the structure-responsive behavior of a smart bioparticle as an active membrane changer provides applicability perspectives as a triggering delivery device for the gastrointestinal tract and further as a cell modulator and internalization promoter.
1. Barbara Pimenta, Rafael Madrid, Patrick Mathews, Karin Riske, Watson Loh, Borislav Angelov, Angelina Angelova, Omar Mertins. Interaction of polyelectrolyte-shell cubosomes with serum albumin for triggering drug release in gastrointestinal cancer. Journal of Materials Chemistry B, 2023, 11, 2490–2503. Doi: 10.1039/d2tb02670h
2. Rafael Madrid, Patrick Mathews, Shreya Pramanik, Agustín Mangiarotti, Rodrigo Fernandes, Rosangela Itri, Rumiana Dimova, Omar Mertins. Hybrid crystalline bioparticles with nanochannels encapsulating acemannan from Aloe vera: Structure and interaction with lipid membranes. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 2024, 673, 373–385. Doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.06.073