Nanostructured Lipid Carrier Development Service
Nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) is an advanced lipid nanoparticle that shows great promise in gene therapy. Our company strives to offer end-to-end services to assist our clients in the development of delivery systems based on NLCs for effective targeting of genetic materials into cells. This will expedite the advancement of gene therapies designed to treat orphan diseases.
Background
NLCs are a new generation of drug delivery systems created in the 20th century founded on solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and are considered to be the second lifetime of lipid nanocarriers. Unlike SLNs and other lipid carriers, NLCs have higher loading capacity because fluid lipids are mixed with solid lipids, which increases the accumulative potential of drugs. The rigid morphology, physical stability, and load degradation resistance of NLCs ensure safety, thereby reducing acute and chronic toxicity. NLCs can also be taught to adjust the ratio of liquid to solid lipids enabling the skeletal structure to remain solid over prolonged periods of time within the body, thereby offering more control over the rate of drug release.
Fig. 1 Characterization of the optimized PNLC formulation/plasmid DNA complexes. (Bondì M L, et al., 2010)
Our Services
There are three main types of NLC: cationic NLC, neutral NLC, and target-modified NLC. Distinct varieties of NLCs have been employed for the delivery of nucleic acids, for example, various miRNA species for tumor gene therapy. Our researchers strive to formulate and implement a collection of NLCs that would solve the problems associated with the delivery of therapeutic genetic material in gene therapy, which in turn helps our clients develop and solve problems. The listing of our work is not exhaustive:
- Preparation of NLCs
We provide three methods including hot homogenization, cold homogenization, and microemulsion to help our customers prepare NLCs that are useful as delivery systems for genetic material.- Preparation of cationic NLCs, which can be used as carriers for negatively charged substances, including DNAs, RNAs, polypeptides, and oligonucleotides.
- Preparation of neutral NLCs, which have a targeted ability for delivery of miRNAs in vivo and have low toxicity.
- Development of targeting-modified NLCs
In order to obtain delivery systems with targeting efficacy, we have developed various strategies to help our customers prepare targeting-modified NLCs.- We coat NLCs with biocompatible polymers such as polyethylene glycol (PEG) to reduce recognition and phagocytosis of NLCs by macrophages and to improve the half-life and stability of NLCs in vivo.
- We improve the targeting of NLC delivery by coupling cell-specific ligands to the NLC surface.
- We use different ligands to modify NLCs to obtain delivery systems with different biological properties. For example, ephrin-A1 (ephrin type-A receptor 1) modified NLCs exhibit low cytotoxicity, high stability, and high loading efficiency of ephrin-A1 and let-7a.
- Physicochemical characterization of NLCS
NLCs must be characterized physicochemically to confirm quality control and stability. We provide customers with a variety of technologies such as photon correlation spectroscopy (PCS), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and Raman spectroscopy to characterize multiple parameters of NLCS.- Analysis of morphological and surface features
- Detection of particle size and zeta potential
- Analysis of the encapsulation efficiency
Armed with knowledge of the molecular architecture of NLCs and their release mechanisms, we are in a position to provide our customers with services to develop and characterize NLCs as a New delivery System. Our targeted specialized NLCs will further advance the field of NLC gene therapy, increasing safety, and efficacy, as well as promoting the advancement of strategies for the treatment of orphan diseases. Please contact us for more details and to get a formal quote.
Reference
- Bondì, M. L.; Craparo E. F. Solid lipid nanoparticles for applications in gene therapy: a review of the state of the art. Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, 2010, 7(1): 7-18.
All of our services and products are intended for preclinical research use only and cannot be used to diagnose, treat or manage patients.