Investigation and Utilization of Lipid Nanoparticles for Use in Drug Delivery Application

Brianna Jones, Yuqi Huang, Theresa Evans-Nguyen, Niketa Patel, Venkat Bhethanabotla

University of South Florida, James A. Haley Veterans Hospital

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are spherical vesicles with a phospholipid bilayer and aqueous core that often act as carriers for small molecules or protective capsules for the various cargo they can carry. Two of the most utilized LNPs in biotechnology are liposomes and exosomes. Liposomes are synthetic LNPs tailored in composition and used in drug delivery. Meanwhile, biologically-derived exosomes are small (30-150nm) but complex extracellular vesicles that play a crucial role in intercellular communications. Exosomes are used for therapeutic purposes such as wound healing. Current dye and drug-loading strategies for these purposes can be lengthy and have low efficiency. Surface Acoustic Waves (SAWs) are proposed as a new strategy for both dye and drug loading. Incubation and SAWs are compared to assess incorporation efficiency into liposomes and exosomes. Further work addresses the long-term storage issues of LNPs, particularly exosomes. Though storage of exosomes at -80 °C facilitates their preservation, the processes of freezing and thawing can lead to degradation by disrupting the membranes. The use of a cryoprotectant is investigated by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) to assess impact to particle sizes and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to determine exosome viability.