Preparation of Zein-Based Nanoparticles: Nanoprecipitation versus Microfluidic-Assisted Manufacture, Effects of PEGylation on Nanoparticle Characteristics and Cellular Uptake by Melanoma Cells.

Background: The manufacture of nanoparticles using manual methods is hampered by its challenging scale-up and poor reproducibility. To overcome this issue, the production of zein nanoparticles entrapping a lipophilic drug model, coumarin-6, by using a microfluidic system was assessed in this study. The influence of PEG density and chain length on zein nanoparticle characteristics, as well as their uptake efficacy in melanoma cancer cells, was also evaluated. Methods: Zein nanoparticles were prepared by both manual and microfluidic approaches to allow comparison between the two processes. PEGylated zein nanoparticles with various PEG densities and chain lengths were produced by nanoprecipitation and characterized. Their cellular uptake was evaluated on B16F10 melanoma cancer cells in vitro. Results: Zein nanoparticles have successfully been produced by both manual and microfluidic approaches. Parameters such as total flow rate and flow rate ratio of the aqueous and organic phases in microfluidic process, as well as the method preparation and aqueous to organic phase volume ratio during nanoprecipitation, have been shown to strongly influence the characteristics of the resulting nanoparticles. Continuous microfluidics led to the production of nanoparticles with low yield and drug entrapment, unlike nanoprecipitation, which resulted in zein nanoparticles with an appropriate size and an optimal drug entrapment efficiency of 64%. The surface modification of the nanoparticles produced by nanoprecipitation, with lower PEG density and shorter PEG chain length made mPEG5K-zein (0.5:1) the most favorable formulation in our study, resulting in enhanced stability and higher coumarin-6 uptake by melanoma cancer cells. Conclusion: mPEG5K-zein (0.5:1) nanoparticles prepared by nanoprecipitation were the most promising formulation in our study, exhibiting increased stability and enhancing coumarin-6 uptake by melanoma cancer cells.

Scalable solvent-free production of liposomes.

OBJECTIVES: A major challenge faced with the manufacture of liposomes is the high volumes of organic solvents used during manufacturing. Therefore, we have implemented an organic solvent-free production method for drug-loaded liposomes and demonstrated its applicability with both aqueous core-loaded and bilayer-loaded drugs. METHODS: Liposomes were produced by high shear mixing dry powder lipids with an aqueous buffer, followed by down-sizing using a Microfluidizer processor. Liposomes were purified via tangential flow filtration and characterised in terms of size, polydispersity index, zeta potential and drug loading. KEY FINDINGS: Doxorubicin-loaded PEGylated liposomes can be manufactured using this solvent-free method with particle sizes of 100-110 nm, low polydispersity index (PDI) (<0.2) and high drug loading (97-98%). If required, liposomes can be further down-sized via microfluidic processing without impacting drug loading. Similar results were achieved with non-PEGylated liposomes. With bilayer-loaded amphotericin B liposomes, again liposomes can be prepared within a clinically appropriate size range (100-110 nm in size, low PDI) with high drug loading (98-100%). CONCLUSIONS: We apply a simple and scalable solvent-free method for the production of both aqueous core or bilayer drug-loaded liposomes.

The Impact of Solvent Selection: Strategies to Guide the Manufacturing of Liposomes Using Microfluidics.

The aim of this work was to assess the impact of solvent selection on the microfluidic production of liposomes. To achieve this, liposomes were manufactured using small-scale and bench-scale microfluidics systems using three aqueous miscible solvents (methanol, ethanol or isopropanol, alone or in combination). Liposomes composed of different lipid compositions were manufactured using these different solvents and characterised to investigate the influence of solvents on liposome attributes. Our studies demonstrate that solvent selection is a key consideration during the microfluidics manufacturing process, not only when considering lipid solubility but also with regard to the resultant liposome critical quality attributes. In general, reducing the polarity of the solvent (from methanol to isopropanol) increased the liposome particle size without impacting liposome short-term stability or release characteristics. Furthermore, solvent combinations such as methanol/isopropanol mixtures can be used to modify solvent polarity and the resultant liposome particle size. However, the impact of solvent choice on the liposome product is also influenced by the liposome formulation; liposomes containing charged lipids tended to show more sensitivity to solvent selection and formulations containing increased concentrations of cholesterol or pegylated-lipids were less influenced by the choice of solvent. Indeed, incorporation of 14 wt% or more of pegylated-lipid was shown to negate the impact of solvent selection.

Scale-Independent Microfluidic Production of Cationic Liposomal Adjuvants and Development of Enhanced Lymphatic Targeting Strategies.

Cationic liposomes prepared from dimethyldioctadecylammonium bromide (DDAB) and trehalose 6,6'-dibehenate (TDB) are strong liposomal adjuvants. As with many liposome formulations, within the laboratory DDAB:TDB is commonly prepared by the thin-film method, which is difficult to scale-up and gives high batch-to-batch variability. In contrast, controllable technologies such as microfluidics offer robust, continuous, and scale-independent production. Therefore, within this study, we have developed a microfluidic production method for cationic liposomal adjuvants that is scale-independent and produces liposomal adjuvants with analogous biodistribution and immunogenicity compared to those produced by the small-scale lipid hydration method. Subsequently, we further developed the DDAB:TDB adjuvant system to include a lymphatic targeting strategy using microfluidics. By exploiting a biotin-avidin complexation strategy, we were able to manipulate the pharmacokinetic profile and enhance targeting and retention of DDAB:TDB and antigen within the lymph nodes. Interestingly, redirecting these cationic liposomal adjuvants did not translate into notably improved vaccine efficacy.

Formulation and manufacturing of lymphatic targeting liposomes using microfluidics.

The lymphatics are a target for a range of therapeutic purposes, including cancer therapy and vaccination, and both vesicle size and charge have been considered as factors controlling lymphatic targeting. Within this work, a range of liposomal formulations were investigated to develop a liposomal lymphatic targeting system. Initial screening of formulations considered the effect of charge, with neutral, cationic and anionic liposomes being investigated. Biodistribution studies demonstrated that after intramuscular injection, anionic liposomes offered the most rapid clearance to the draining lymphatics with cationic liposomes forming a depot at the injection site. Anionic liposomes containing phosphatidylserine showed higher clearance to the lymphatics and this may result form preferential uptake by macrophages. In terms of vesicle size, smaller unilamellar vesicles gave high lymphatic targeting and a 10-fold increase in concentration was achieved in dose escalation studies. Given that effective trafficking to the lymphatics was achieved, the next step was to enhance retention of the liposomes within the lymphatics, therefore the liposome formulation was combined with an avidin/biotin complex mechanism. The affinity of avidin for biotin allows biotinylated liposomes to complex in the presence of avidin. By pre-dosing with avidin, the biotin-avidin complex can be exploited to promote longer retention of the liposomes at the draining lymphatics. To load these small, biotinylated liposomes with protein, microfluidics manufacturing was used. Using microfluidics, protein could easily be incorporated in these small (~90nm) biotinylated liposomes. Both liposome and protein retention at the local draining lymph nodes was demonstrated with the liposome-biotin-avidin system. These results demonstrate that microfluidics can be used to prepare protein-loaded liposomes that offer enhanced lymphatic targeting and retention of both the liposomes and entrapped antigen.

Exploitation of the bilosome platform technology to formulate antibiotics and enhance efficacy of melioidosis treatments.

Burkholderia pseudomallei is a Gram-negative intracellular bacterium which is recalcitrant to antibiotic therapy. There also is currently no licensed vaccine for this potentially fatal pathogen, further highlighting the requirement for better therapeutics to treat the disease melioidosis. Here we use an oral delivery platform, the bilosome to entrap already- licensed antibiotics. Bilosome-entrapped antibiotics were used to treat mice infected via the aerosol route with B. pseudomallei. When treatment was started by the oral route at 6 h post-infection and continued for 7 days, bilosome levofloxacin and bilosome doxycycline formulations were significantly more efficacious than free antibiotics in terms of survival rates. Additionally, bilosome formulated levofloxacin protected mice from antibiotic and infection induced weight loss following B. pseudomallei infection. The microbiomes of mice treated with levofloxacin were depleted of all phyla with the exception of Firmicutes, but doxycycline treatment had minimal effect on the microbiome. Encapsulation of either drug in bilosomes had no deleterious or clear advantageous effect on microbiome. This indicates that the ability of bilosomes to ameliorate antibiotic induced weight loss is not due to microbiome effects. The bilosome platform not only has potential to reduce adverse effects of orally delivered antimicrobials, but has potential for other therapeutics which may cause detrimental side-effects or require enhanced delivery.

Point of use production of liposomal solubilised products.

With the progression towards personalised and age-appropriate medicines, the production of drug loaded liposomes at the point of care would be highly desirable. In particular, liposomal solubilisation agents that can be produced rapidly and easily would provide a new option in personalised medicines. Such a process could also be used as a rapid tool for the formulation and pre-clinical screening of low soluble drugs. Within this paper, we outline a novel easy-to-use production method for point of use production of liposome solubilised drugs. Our results demonstrate that pre-formed multilamellar liposomes, stored in a fresh or frozen format, can be bilayer loaded with low solubility drugs using a simple bath sonication process. Sonication is undertaken in a sealed vial allowing the contents to remain sterile. Liposomes around 100 nm were prepared and these liposomes were able to increase the amount of drug dissolved by up to 10 fold. These liposomal solubilisation agents were stable in terms of size and drug solubilisation for up to 8 days when stored in the fridge making them an easy to use and robust small-scale tool for drug solubilisation.

Application of Pharmacokinetics Modelling to Predict Human Exposure of a Cationic Liposomal Subunit Antigen Vaccine System.

The pharmacokinetics of a liposomal subunit antigen vaccine system composed of the cationic lipid dimethyldioctadecylammonium bromide (DDA) and the immunostimulatory agent trehalose 6,6-dibehenate (TDB) (8:1 molar ratio) combined with the Ag85B-ESAT-6 (H1) antigen were modelled using mouse in-vivo data. Compartment modelling and physiologically based pharmacokinetics (PBPK) were used to predict the administration site (muscle) and target site (lymph) temporal concentration profiles and factors governing these. Initial estimates using compartmental modelling established that quadriceps pharmacokinetics for the liposome demonstrated a long half-life (22.6 days) compared to the associated antigen (2.62 days). A mouse minimal-PBPK model was developed and successfully predicted quadriceps liposome and antigen pharmacokinetics. Predictions for the popliteal lymph node (PLN) aligned well at earlier time-points. A local sensitivity analysis highlighted that the predicted AUCmuscle was sensitive to the antigen degradation constant kdeg (resulting in a 3-log change) more so than the fraction escaping the quadriceps (fe) (resulting in a 10-fold change), and the predicted AUCPLN was highly sensitive to fe. A global sensitivity analysis of the antigen in the muscle demonstrated that model predictions were within the 50th percentile for predictions and showed acceptable fits. To further translate in-vitro data previously generated by our group, the mouse minimal-PBPK model was extrapolated to humans and predictions made for antigen pharmacokinetics in muscle and PLN. Global analysis demonstrated that both kdeg and fe had a minimal impact on the resulting simulations in the muscle but a greater impact in the PLN. In summary, this study has predicted the in-vivo fate of DDA:TDB:H1 in humans and demonstrated the roles that formulation degradation and fraction escaping the depot site can play upon the overall depot effect within the site of administration.

Manufacturing Methods for Liposome Adjuvants.

A wide range of studies have shown that liposomes can act as suitable adjuvants for a range of vaccine antigens. Properties such as their amphiphilic character and biphasic nature allow them to incorporate antigens within the lipid bilayer, on the surface, or encapsulated within the inner core. However, appropriate methods for the manufacture of liposomes are limited and this has resulted in issues with cost, supply, and wider scale application of these systems. Within this chapter we explore manufacturing processes that can be used for the production of liposomal adjuvants, and we outline new manufacturing methods can that offer fast, scalable, and cost-effective production of liposomal adjuvants.

The administration route is decisive for the ability of the vaccine adjuvant CAF09 to induce antigen-specific CD8(+) T-cell responses: The immunological consequences of the biodistribution profile.

A prerequisite for vaccine-mediated induction of CD8(+) T-cell responses is the targeting of dendritic cell (DC) subsets specifically capable of cross-presenting antigen epitopes to CD8(+) T cells. Administration of a number of cationic adjuvants via the intraperitoneal (i.p.) route has been shown to result in strong CD8(+) T-cell responses, whereas immunization via e.g. the intramuscular (i.m.) or subcutaneous (s.c.) routes often stimulate weak CD8(+) T-cell responses. The hypothesis for this is that self-drainage of the adjuvant/antigen to the lymphoid organs, which takes place upon i.p. immunization, is required for the subsequent activation of cross-presenting lymphoid organ-resident CD8α(+) DCs. In contrast, s.c. or i.m. immunization usually results in the formation of a depot at the site of injection (SOI), which hinders the self-drainage and targeting of the vaccine to cross-presenting CD8α(+) DCs. We investigated this hypothesis by correlating the biodistribution pattern and the adjuvanticity of the strong CD8(+) T-cell inducing liposomal cationic adjuvant formulation 09 (CAF09), which is composed of dimethyldioctadecylammonium bromide/monomycoloyl glycerol liposomes with polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid electrostatically adsorbed to the surface. Biodistribution studies with radiolabeled CAF09 and a surface-adsorbed model antigen [ovalbumin (OVA)] showed that a significantly larger fraction of the vaccine dose localized in the draining lymph nodes (dLNs) and the spleen 6h after i.p. immunization, as compared to after i.m. immunization. Studies with fluorescently labelled OVA+CAF09 demonstrated a preferential association of OVA+CAF09 to DCs/monocytes, as compared to macrophages and B cells, following i.p. immunization. Administration of OVA+CAF09 via the i.p. route did also result in DC activation, whereas no DC activation could be measured within the same period with unadjuvanted OVA and OVA+CAF09 administered via the s.c. or i.m. routes. In the dLNs, the highest level of activated, cross-presenting CD8α(+) DCs was detected at 24h post immunization, whereas an influx of activated, migrating and cross-presenting CD103(+) DCs to the dLNs could be measured after 48h. This suggests that the CD8α(+) DCs are activated by self-draining OVA+CAF09 in the lymphoid organs, whereas the CD103(+) DCs are stimulated by the OVA+CAF09 at the SOI. These results support the hypothesis that the self-drainage of OVA+CAF09 to the draining LNs is required for the activation of CD8α(+) DCs, while the migratory CD103(+) DCs may play a role in sustaining the subsequent induction of strong CD8(+) T-cell responses.