CHARACTERIZATION OF NANOPARTICLE LOADING IN AEROSOLS FOR PULMONARY NUCLEIC ACID DELIVERY
Date
2024-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Approximately 544.9 million people globally are diagnosed with chronic
respiratory diseases, which has increased 39.8% since 1990.
1 Aerosolized drugs that
can yield controlled effects on the pulmonary immune system may afford new
opportunities to treat such diseases. In this research, we investigate the role of
nanoparticle formulations as respirable drug delivery carriers. We first investigate the
physical effects of nanoparticle loading into nebulized aerosols to create respirable
aerosols with tunable sizes. Formulations of different concentrations of nanoparticles
were aerosolized with an Aeroneb vibrating mesh nebulizer and characterized by laser
diffraction. We find that at a critical nanoparticle concentration, the aerosol volumetric
median diameter increased upwards of ~150%. Methods of nucleic acid delivery for
pulmonary applications were also explored. Polyplexes were dosed to lung epithelial
cells using both liquid and aerosol methods, in which cell transfection was induced
successfully using both delivery methods. The results presented in this work have the
potential to have significant impacts on particulate aerosol delivery systems, as well as
nucleic acid delivery applications. Future work includes combining these physical and
cellular effects to improve the transport and delivery of bio-active nanoparticles for
immune and gene delivery applications.