Immune cell impact of three differently coated lipid nanocapsules: pluronic, chitosan and polyethylene glycol

Abstract

Lipid nanocapsules (NCs) represent promising tools in clinical practice for diagnosis and therapy applications. However, the NC appropriate functionalization is essential to guarantee high biocompatibility and molecule loading ability. In any medical application, the immune system-impact of differently functionalized NCs still remains to be fully understood. A comprehensive study on the action exerted on human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and major immune subpopulations by three different NC coatings: pluronic, chitosan and polyethylene glycol-polylactic acid (PEG) is reported. After a deep particle characterization, the uptake was assessed by flow-cytometry and confocal microscopy, focusing then on apoptosis, necrosis and proliferation impact in T cells and monocytes. Cell functionality by cell diameter variations, different activation marker analysis and cytokine assays were performed. We demonstrated that the NCs impact on the immune cell response is strongly correlated to their coating. Pluronic-NCs were able to induce immunomodulation of innate immunity inducing monocyte activations. Immunomodulation was observed in monocytes and T lymphocytes treated with Chitosan-NCs. Conversely, PEG-NCs were completely inert. These findings are of particular value towards a pre-selection of specific NC coatings depending on biomedical purposes for pre-clinical investigations; i.e. the immune-specific action of particular NC coating can be excellent for immunotherapy applications.

Impact of dose and surface features on plasmatic and liver concentrations of biodegradable polymeric nanocapsules

“…The presence of the PEG corona at the NC surface did not result in a decrease in its level of interaction with blood cells, as indicated by similar phagocytic indices for all leukocyte types with either PLA NC or PLA-PEG NC in human blood. These findings are in agreement with a recent study where internalization of PEG-coated lipid NC by immune cells was observed at a similar frequency to Pluronic F68 or chitosan coated PLA NP(Farace et al, 2016). Interestingly, a significantly lower level of interaction of PLA-Cs NC was observed with mice than with human leukocytes in comparison with the other NC.…”

“…Farace et al 2016 (Farace et al, 2016) found that chitosan NC aggregated upon immersion in buffer at pH 7.4. Similarly, PLA-Cs NC are likely to aggregate under physiological pH.…”

Interaction of Nanoparticles with Blood Components and Associated Pathophysiological Effects

“…Oleate seems to confer a different load and agglomeration potential, favoring cell uptake and, therefore, cytotoxicity [55]. Recently, Farace et al studied the effect of nanocapsules (PCs, 170-300 nm) coated with chitosan and pluronic PEG on peripheral blood mononuclear cells and subpopulations of T lymphocytes and monocytes which were taken as representative of the innate immune response [56]. …”

Long Exposure to CdS-Dextrin Nanoparticles Induces an Immunomodulatory and Anti-Inflammatory Effect in Rats

“…Several authors have pointed out that the immune system's recognition of nanoparticles is influenced by the type of covering, the formation of the protein corona, the charge, and the functional group, among others. Since each nanomaterial has its own characteristics, it might modulate the immune system's response through several pathways [1,24,31,32]. …”