(67f) Designing better drug delivery particles: Protein corona formation and multicomponent aggregation of particles in blood plasma
AIChE Annual Meeting
2023
2023 AIChE Annual Meeting
Liaison Functions
AIChE Journal Futures: New Directions in Chemical Engineering Research (Invited Talks)
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 - 5:05pm to 5:24pm
Characterizing the size of the particles directly in blood plasma is important to determine the extent of protein corona formation on the particles. With DLS, this is typically done by exposing particles to blood plasma followed by washing or dilution with water, then the increase in particle size can be measured. By washing the particles, however, the loosely bound proteins of the soft corona are removed and the measurements do not reflect what the particle would experience in vivo. As an alternative, we have developed a method of analyzing particles in blood plasma using nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) using fluorescently labeled particles. The size of the particle, and thus the size of the protein corona, can be measured in pure blood plasma using this method. Additionally, due to the unique visualization of the nanoparticles, the aggregation behavior of the particles in blood plasma can be observed and quantified. In this work, polystyrene particles were modified with multi-arm and linear polyethylene glycol (PEG) to determine their aggregation profiles and protein corona formation. Multi-arm PEGs were found to aggregate more than linear PEGs, due to the change in zeta potential from unreacted end groups, which may lead to shorter circulation half-lives. Furthermore, the protein corona formation and composition were studied after different washing procedures, highlighting the importance of studying protein corona formation with undiluted blood plasma.