Asymmetric Charged Vesicles with Enhanced Drug Entrapment Performance

Background

Chemotherapeutic drugs and biomedicines need to be delivered effectively to their targets. This is especially true of drugs with an electric charge. In these cases, the use of the direct delivery method can result in negative side effects such as poor biodistribution, drug breakdown and short circulation. The use of liposomes in drug delivery minimizes these side effects. The use of liposomes also improves effective drug concentration, increases circulation time, and minimizes the doses needed. Currently, the lipid drug delivery method faces challenges concerning the properties of the lipids, such as charge. These difficulties result in the charged drugs sticking to certain surfaces of the body, making the delivery inefficient. The use of asymmetric Large Unilamellar Vesicles (LUV’s) would allow for different charges on the inside and outside of the vesicles. Thus, allowing for flexibility that would maximize the amount of a drug that can be loaded.

Technology

Lipid vesicles, liposomes, are artificial membranes that contain an aqueous interior surrounded by a bilayered lipid shell. The process allows for the creation of asymmetric LUV’s. This would allow for the inner and outer lipid layers to have different properties, such as charge. The flexibility of this property can address the issue of limited payload capacity for liposomal drug delivery.

Advantages

Increases the application of liposomes used for drug delivery
Increases the efficiency of drug delivery
Ability to deliver a higher concentration of the drug

Application

Drug delivery
DNA delivery for the altering of virus membranes