Engineering swollen cubosomes using cholesterol and anionic lipids

DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.9b02336

Authors: Hanna M. G. Barriga (Imperial College London) , Oscar Ces (Imperial College London) , Robert V. Law (Imperial College London) , John M. Seddon (Imperial College London) , Nicholas J. Brooks (Imperial College London)
Co-authored by industrial partner: No

Type: Journal Paper
Journal: Langmuir

State: Published (Approved)
Published: November 2019
Diamond Proposal Number(s): 14217

Abstract: Dispersions of non-lamellar lipid membrane assemblies are gaining increasing interest for drug delivery and protein therapeutic application. A key bottleneck has been the lack of rational design rules for these systems linking different lipid species and conditions to defined lattice parameters and structures. We have developed robust methods to form cubosomes (nanoparticles with a porous internal structure) with water channel diameters of up to 171 Å which are over 4 times larger than archetypal cubosome structures. The water channel diameter can be tuned via the incorporation of cholesterol and the charged lipids DOPA, DOPG or DOPS. We have found that large molecules can be incorporated into the porous cubosome structure and these molecules can interact with the internal cubosome membrane. This offers huge potential for accessible encapsulation and protection of biomolecules, and development of confined interfacial reaction environments.

Journal Keywords: Lipids; Peptides and proteins; Lattices; Cholesterol; Fluorescence resonance energy transfer

Subject Areas: Chemistry, Biology and Bio-materials, Medicine


Instruments: I22-Small angle scattering & Diffraction

Other Facilities: ESRF

Added On: 11/11/2019 09:36

Discipline Tags:

Drug Delivery Health & Wellbeing Biochemistry Soft condensed matter physics Chemistry Life Sciences & Biotech

Technical Tags:

Scattering Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS)