Delivery of drugs in microcapsules from the customer's cells
Cellular factories prepare the drug for delivery
ChemPort based on the materials of the Royal Society of Chemistry:
Cell factories package drugs for delivery
Researchers from Australia and Germany used living cells as "assembly shops" for packing low-molecular compounds, such as drugs, into biological membranes.
The new system can be used in the future as a biologically compatible system for controlled drug delivery that can bypass the human immune and excretory systems.
Dayang Wang from the University of South Australia has demonstrated that a number of hydrophobic molecules, including drugs and dyes, can diffuse through the membranes of cultured human or mouse cells. Then, under the influence of cell enzymes, these hydrophobic molecules can be converted into hydrophilic ones, which can remain in the cytoplasm of the cell.
The next stage of the work is to pack these particles into capsules smaller than cells, consisting of cell membranes. The researchers managed to achieve this by treating cells with cytochalasin B, which destroys the cytoskeleton of the cell. With further mechanical action on the cells (shaking of the substrate containing the treated cells), the cell membrane disintegrates, forming a large number of hollow spheres of smaller diameter (usually 1-2 microns) containing an encapsulated molecule.
In the course of a more detailed study of these small vesicles, it turned out that the proteins of cell membranes, including receptors and ion channels, are preserved in these small capsules, which, in turn, can be used to release the contents of vesicles as a result of a certain biochemical effect.
The contents of the capsules are released through the protein channels of the cell membrane.
A drawing from an article in Nano Letters: Zhengwei Mao et al.,
Cells as Factories for Humanized Encapsulation
It has also been shown that these vesicles are able to avoid the unwanted attention of macrophages – cells circulating in the blood and responsible for fighting foreign particles.
Wong notes that the strategic plans of the researchers include the development of a system that would allow for the targeted delivery of drugs, magnetic nanoparticles and other biological tags, receiving capsules from the cells of the patient himself, then injecting him with the same carrier capsules. If such a system can be created, it will have the greatest chance of bypassing the human immune system.
Martin Garnett, a specialist in controlled drug delivery from the University of Nottingham, notes that the idea of loading drugs into containers made of cell membranes is very promising, especially due to the fact that such capsules can avoid attack by macrophages.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru25.04.2011