fabrication-pulsatile-polymeric-microparticles-encapsulating-rabies

Fabrication of Pulsatile Polymeric Microparticles Encapsulating Rabies Antigen

The current guidelines for rabies post-exposure prophylaxis require multiple injections administered over several weeks. This can be disproportionately ...

Rice University

Employing drug delivery strategies to create safe and effective pharmaceuticals for COVID-19.

Activation of the stimulator of interferon gene (STING) pathway within the tumor microenvironment has been shown to generate a strong antitumor response. Although local administration of STING agonists has promise for cancer immunotherapy, the dosing regimen needed to achieve efficacy requires frequent intratumoral injections over months. Frequent dosing for cancer treatment is associated with poor patient adherence, with as high as 48% of patients failing to comply. Multiple intratumoral injections also disrupt the tumor microenvironment and vascular networks and therefore increase the risk of metastasis. Here, we developed microfabricated polylactic--glycolic acid (PLGA) particles that remain at the site of injection and release encapsulated STING agonist as a programmable sequence of pulses at predetermined time points that mimic multiple injections over days to weeks. A single intratumoral injection of STING agonist-loaded microparticles triggered potent local and systemic antitumor immune responses, inhibited tumor growth, and prolonged survival as effectively as multiple soluble doses, but with reduced metastasis in several mouse tumor models. STING agonist-loaded microparticles improved the response to immune checkpoint blockade therapy and substantially decreased the tumor recurrence rate from 100 to 25% in mouse models of melanoma when administered during surgical resection. In addition, we demonstrated the therapeutic efficacy of STING microparticles on an orthotopic pancreatic cancer model in mice that does not allow multiple intratumoral injections. These findings could directly benefit current STING agonist therapy by decreasing the number of injections, reducing risk of metastasis, and expanding its applicability to hard-to-reach cancers.

Engineered PLGA microparticles for long-term, pulsatile release of STING agonist for cancer immunotherapy.

Pharmaceutical drugs are an important part of the global healthcare system, with some estimates suggesting over 50% of the world's population takes at least one medication per day. Most drugs are delivered as immediate-release formulations that lead to a rapid increase in systemic drug concentration. Although these formulations have historically played an important role, they can be limited by poor patient compliance, adverse side effects, low bioavailability, or undesirable pharmacokinetics. Drug delivery systems featuring first-order release kinetics have been able to improve pharmacokinetics but are not ideal for drugs with short biological half-lives or small therapeutic windows. Zero-order drug delivery systems have the potential to overcome the issues facing immediate-release and first-order systems by releasing drug at a constant rate, thereby maintaining drug concentrations within the therapeutic window for an extended period of time. This release profile can be used to limit adverse side effects, reduce dosing frequency, and potentially improve patient compliance. This review covers strategies being employed to attain zero-order release or alter traditionally first-order release kinetics to achieve more consistent release before discussing opportunities for improving device performance based on emerging materials and fabrication methods.

Zero-order drug delivery: State of the art and future prospects.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are a potential target for cancer immunotherapy due to their role in the activation of the innate immune system. More specifically, TLR7 and TLR8, two structurally similar pattern recognition receptors that trigger interferon and cytokine responses, have proven to be therapeutically relevant targets for cancer in numerous preclinical and clinical studies. When triggered by an agonist, such as imiquimod or resiquimod, the TLR7/8 activation pathway induces cellular and humoral immune responses that can kill cancer cells with high specificity. Unfortunately, TLR7/8 agonists also present a number of issues that must be overcome prior to broad clinical implementation, such as poor drug solubility and systemic toxic effects. To overcome the key limitations of TLR7/8 agonists as a cancer therapy, biomaterial-based drug delivery systems have been developed. These delivery devices are highly diverse in their design and include systems that can be directly administered to the tumor, passively accumulated in relevant cancerous and lymph tissues, triggered by environmental stimuli, or actively targeted to specific physiological areas and cellular populations. In addition to improved delivery systems, recent studies have also demonstrated the potential benefits of TLR7/8 agonist co-delivery with other types of therapies, particularly checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines, and chemotherapeutics, which can yield impressive anti-cancer effects. In this review, we discuss recent advances in the development of TLR7/8 agonist delivery systems and provide perspective on promising future directions.

Employing Drug Delivery Strategies to Overcome Challenges Using TLR7/8 Agonists for Cancer Immunotherapy.

A vast majority of cancer deaths occur as a result of metastasis. Unfortunately, effective treatments for metastases are currently lacking due to the difficulty of selectively targeting these small, delocalized tumors distributed across a variety of organs. However, nanotechnology holds tremendous promise for improving immunotherapeutic outcomes in patients with metastatic cancer. In contrast to conventional cancer immunotherapies, rationally designed nanomaterials can trigger specific tumoricidal effects, thereby improving immune cell access to major sites of metastasis such as bone, lungs, and lymph nodes, optimizing antigen presentation, and inducing a persistent immune response. This paper reviews the cutting-edge trends in nano-immunoengineering for metastatic cancers with an emphasis on different nano-immunotherapeutic strategies. Specifically, it discusses directly reversing the immunological status of the primary tumor, harnessing the potential of peripheral immune cells, preventing the formation of a pre-metastatic niche, and inhibiting the tumor recurrence through postoperative immunotherapy. Finally, we describe the challenges facing the integration of nanoscale immunomodulators and provide a forward-looking perspective on the innovative nanotechnology-based tools that may ultimately prove effective at eradicating metastatic diseases.

Nanotechnology-enhanced immunotherapy for metastatic cancer.

Future infectious disease outbreaks are inevitable; therefore, it is critical that we maximize our readiness for these events by preparing effective public health policies and healthcare innovations. Although we do not know the nature of future pathogens, antigen-agnostic platforms have the potential to be broadly useful in the rapid response to an emerging infection-particularly in the case of vaccines. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, recent advances in mRNA engineering have proven paramount in the rapid design and production of effective vaccines. Comparatively, however, the development of new adjuvants capable of enhancing vaccine efficacy has been lagging. Despite massive improvements in our understanding of immunology, fewer than ten adjuvants have been approved for human use in the century since the discovery of the first adjuvant. Modern adjuvants can improve vaccines against future pathogens by reducing cost, improving antigen immunogenicity, and increasing antigen stability. In this perspective, we survey the current state of adjuvant use, highlight potentially impactful preclinical adjuvants, and propose new measures to accelerate adjuvant safety testing and technology sharing to enable the use of "off-the-shelf" adjuvant platforms for rapid vaccine testing and deployment in the face of future pandemics.

Novel Vaccine Adjuvants as Key Tools for Improving Pandemic Preparedness.

Improving the effectiveness of cancer therapy will require tools that enable more specific cancer targeting and improved tumor visualization. Theranostics have the potential for improving cancer care because of their ability to serve as both diagnostics and therapeutics; however, their diagnostic potential is often limited by tissue-associated light absorption and scattering. Herein, we develop CuInSe@ZnS:Mn quantum dots (QDs) with intrinsic multifunctionality that both enable the accurate localization of small metastases and act as potent tumor ablation agents. By leveraging the growth kinetics of a ZnS shell on a biocompatible CuInSe core, Mn doping, and folic acid functionalization, we produce biocompatible QDs with high near-infrared (NIR)-II fluorescence efficiency up to 31.2%, high contrast on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and preferential distribution in 4T1 breast cancer tumors. MRI-enabled contrast of these nanoprobes is sufficient to timely identify small metastases in the lungs, which is critically important for preventing cancer spreading and recurrence. Further, exciting tumor-resident QDs with NIR light produces both fluorescence for tumor visualization through radiative recombination pathways as well as heat and radicals through nonradiative recombination pathways that kill cancer cells and initiate an anticancer immune response, which eliminates tumor and prevents tumor regrowth in 80% of mice.

Bright, Magnetic NIR-II Quantum Dot Probe for Sensitive Dual-Modality Imaging and Intensive Combination Therapy of Cancer.

Adjuvants play a critical role in enhancing vaccine efficacy; however, there is a need to develop new immunomodulatory compounds to address emerging pathogens and to expand the use of immunotherapies. Multidomain peptides (MDPs) are materials composed of canonical amino acids that form injectable supramolecular hydrogels under physiological salt and pH conditions. MDP hydrogels are rapidly infiltrated by immune cells  and have previously been shown to influence cytokine production. Therefore, we hypothesized that these immunostimulatory characteristics would allow MDPs to function as vaccine adjuvants. Herein, we demonstrate that loading antigen into MDP hydrogels does not interfere with their rheological properties and that positively charged MDPs can act as antigen depots, as demonstrated by their ability to release ovalbumin (OVA) over a period of 7-9 days . Mice vaccinated with MDP-adjuvanted antigen generated significantly higher IgG titers than mice treated with the unadjuvanted control, suggesting that these hydrogels potentiate humoral immunity. Interestingly, MDP hydrogels did not elicit a robust cellular immune response, as indicated by the lower production of IgG2c and smaller populations of tetramer-positive CD8 T splenocytes compared to mice vaccinated alum-adjuvanted OVA. Together, the data suggest that MDP hydrogel adjuvants strongly bias the immune response towards humoral immunity while evoking a very limited cellular immune response. As a result, MDPs may have the potential to serve as adjuvants for applications that benefit exclusively from humoral immunity.

Multidomain peptide hydrogel adjuvants elicit strong bias towards humoral immunity.

Diagnostics and drug delivery technologies engineered for low-resource settings aim to meet their technical design specifications using strategies that are compatible with limited equipment, infrastructure, and operator training. Despite many preclinical successes, very few of these devices have been translated to the clinic. Here, we identify factors that contribute to the clinical success of diagnostics and drug delivery systems for low-resource settings, including the need to engage key stakeholders at an early stage, and provide recommendations for the clinical translation of future medical technologies.

Translating diagnostics and drug delivery technologies to low-resource settings.

Food fortification is an effective strategy to address vitamin A (VitA) deficiency, which is the leading cause of childhood blindness and drastically increases mortality from severe infections. However, VitA food fortification remains challenging due to significant degradation during storage and cooking. We utilized an FDA-approved, thermostable, and pH-responsive basic methacrylate copolymer (BMC) to encapsulate and stabilize VitA in microparticles (MPs). Encapsulation of VitA in VitA-BMC MPs greatly improved stability during simulated cooking conditions and long-term storage. VitA absorption was nine times greater from cooked MPs than from cooked free VitA in rats. In a randomized controlled cross-over study in healthy premenopausal women, VitA was readily released from MPs after consumption and had a similar absorption profile to free VitA. This VitA encapsulation technology will enable global food fortification strategies toward eliminating VitA deficiency.

Enhanced stability and clinical absorption of a form of encapsulated vitamin A for food fortification.

Recently, there has been increased interest in using mannan as an immunomodulatory bioconjugate. Despite notable immunological and functional differences between the reduced (R-Man) and oxidized (O-Man) forms of mannan, little is known about the impact of mannan oxidation state on its  persistence or its potential controlled release from biomaterials that may improve immunotherapeutic or prophylactic efficacy. Here, we investigate the impact of oxidation state on the  and  release of mannan from a biocompatible and immunostimulatory multidomain peptide hydrogel, K(SL)K (abbreviated as K), that has been previously used for the controlled release of protein and small molecule payloads. We observed that O-Man released more slowly from K hydrogels  than R-Man. , the clearance of O-Man from K hydrogels was slower than O-Man alone. We attributed the slower release rate to the formation of dynamic imine bonds between reactive aldehyde groups on O-Man and the lysine residues on K. This imine interaction was also observed to improve K + O-Man hydrogel strength and shear recovery without significantly influencing secondary structure or peptide nanofiber formation. There were no observed differences in the  release rates of O-Man loaded in K, R-Man loaded in K, and R-Man alone. These data suggest that, after subcutaneous injection, R-Man naturally persists longer  than O-Man and minimally interacts with the peptide hydrogel. These results highlight a potentially critical, but previously unreported, difference in the  behavior of O-Man and R-Man and demonstrate that K can be used to normalize the release of O-Man to that of R-Man. Further, since K itself is an adjuvant, a combination of O-Man and K could be used to enhance the immunostimulatory effects of O-Man for applications such as infectious disease vaccines and cancer immunotherapy.

Dynamic Imine Bonding Facilitates Mannan Release from a Nanofibrous Peptide Hydrogel.

Pulsatile drug delivery systems have the potential to improve patient adherence and therapeutic efficacy by providing a sequence of doses in a single injection. Herein, a novel platform, termed Particles Uniformly Liquified and Sealed to Encapsulate Drugs (PULSED) is developed, which enables the high-throughput fabrication of microparticles exhibiting pulsatile release. In PULSED, biodegradable polymeric microstructures with an open cavity are formed using high-resolution 3D printing and soft lithography, filled with drug, and sealed using a contactless heating step in which the polymer flows over the orifice to form a complete shell around a drug-loaded core. Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) particles with this structure can rapidly release encapsulated material after delays of 10 ± 1, 15 ± 1, 17 ± 2, or 36 ± 1 days in vivo, depending on polymer molecular weight and end group. The system is even compatible with biologics, releasing over 90% of bevacizumab in its bioactive form after a two-week delay in vitro. The PULSED system is highly versatile, offering compatibility with crystalline and amorphous polymers, easily injectable particle sizes, and compatibility with several newly developed drug loading methods. Together, these results suggest that PULSED is a promising platform for creating long-acting drug formulations that improve patient outcomes due to its simplicity, low cost, and scalability.

A Scalable Platform for Fabricating Biodegradable Microparticles with Pulsatile Drug Release.

Poor medication adherence is a pervasive issue with considerable health and socioeconomic consequences. Although the underlying reasons are generally understood, traditional intervention strategies rooted in patient-centric education and empowerment have proved to be prohibitively complex and/or ineffective. Formulating a pharmaceutical in a drug delivery system (DDS) is a promising alternative that can directly mitigate many common impediments to adherence, including frequent dosing, adverse effects and a delayed onset of action. Existing DDSs have already positively influenced patient acceptability and improved rates of adherence across various disease and intervention types. The next generation of systems have the potential to instate an even more radical paradigm shift by, for example, permitting oral delivery of biomacromolecules, allowing for autonomous dose regulation and enabling several doses to be mimicked with a single administration. Their success, however, is contingent on their ability to address the problems that have made DDSs unsuccessful in the past.

Overcoming barriers to patient adherence: the case for developing innovative drug delivery systems.

Human pluripotent stem cell-derived CMs (iPSC-CMs) are a valuable tool for disease modeling, cell therapy and to reconstruct the CM maturation process and identify, characterize factors that regulate maturation. The transition from immature fetal to adult CM entails coordinated regulation of the mature gene programming, which is characterized by the induction of myofilament and OXPHOS gene expression among others. Recent studies in  ,  and C2C12 myoblast cell lines have implicated the histone H3K4me3 demethylase KDM5 and its homologs, as a potential regulator of developmental gene program and mitochondrial function. We speculated that KDM5 may potentiate the maturation of iPSC-CMs by targeting a conserved epigenetic program that encompass mitochondrial OXPHOS and other CM specific maturation genes.

Histone demethylase KDM5 regulates cardiomyocyte maturation by promoting fatty acid oxidation, oxidative phosphorylation, and myofibrillar organization.

Article	Year
Employing drug delivery strategies to create safe and effective pharmaceuticals for COVID-19. Bioengineering & translational medicine\| PubMed ID: 32440566	2020
Engineered PLGA microparticles for long-term, pulsatile release of STING agonist for cancer immunotherapy. Science translational medicine\| PubMed ID: 32801144	2020
Zero-order drug delivery: State of the art and future prospects. Journal of controlled release : official journal of the Controlled Release Society\| PubMed ID: 32931897	2020
Employing Drug Delivery Strategies to Overcome Challenges Using TLR7/8 Agonists for Cancer Immunotherapy. The AAPS journal\| PubMed ID: 34181117	2021
Nanotechnology-enhanced immunotherapy for metastatic cancer. Innovation (Cambridge (Mass.))\| PubMed ID: 34766099	2021
Novel Vaccine Adjuvants as Key Tools for Improving Pandemic Preparedness. Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland)\| PubMed ID: 34821721	2021
Bright, Magnetic NIR-II Quantum Dot Probe for Sensitive Dual-Modality Imaging and Intensive Combination Therapy of Cancer. ACS nano\| PubMed ID: 35442624	2022
Multidomain peptide hydrogel adjuvants elicit strong bias towards humoral immunity. Biomaterials science\| PubMed ID: 36102692	2022
Translating diagnostics and drug delivery technologies to low-resource settings. Science translational medicine\| PubMed ID: 36223447	2022
Enhanced stability and clinical absorption of a form of encapsulated vitamin A for food fortification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America\| PubMed ID: 36508653	2022
Dynamic Imine Bonding Facilitates Mannan Release from a Nanofibrous Peptide Hydrogel. Bioconjugate chemistry\| PubMed ID: 36580277	2023
A Scalable Platform for Fabricating Biodegradable Microparticles with Pulsatile Drug Release. Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.)\| PubMed ID: 36862114	2023
Overcoming barriers to patient adherence: the case for developing innovative drug delivery systems. Nature reviews. Drug discovery\| PubMed ID: 36973491	2023
Histone demethylase KDM5 regulates cardiomyocyte maturation by promoting fatty acid oxidation, oxidative phosphorylation, and myofibrillar organization. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology\| PubMed ID: 37090524	2023

Kevin J. McHugh

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