Modern drug delivery systems for therapeutic applications are very similar in size and shape to biological nanostructures with comparable functions, like exosomes or viruses. Polymer-based particles are in particular interesting as drug, vaccine and gene delivery systems because they can be easily chemically modified, but they can lack in biocompatibility and degradability. Alternatives are nature’s biopolymers that are readily accessible, can be obtained in high quantity, are structurally well defined and trigger in most cases only a low reaction of the immune system. Especially proteins have interesting properties as structurally well-defined biopolymers for the formation of nanoparticles. They can have advantages over synthetic polymers when looking at specific areas like biodegradability, non-antigenicity, stability, binding capacity or toxicity. Because of these unique properties, protein-based nanocarriers are promising candidates for the delivery of therapeutics. Here, we present a recently developed, universal approach for the preparation of protein-based nanoparticles for the delivery of hydrophobic drugs. It features a new concept for the formation of particles based on the assembly of surface-modified proteins (see Figure). Our method allows the use of solvent evaporation techniques for the formation of stable nanoparticles without denaturation or crosslinking of the proteins. We obtain empty and drug-loaded nanoparticles with a size of around 100 nm that are stable in different physiological environments. The produced nanoparticles are non-toxic and can efficiently deliver the encapsulated drugs in in vitro experiments. Additionally, we transferred the method of particle preparation to various proteins in different sizes, showing that this method can be universally applied to any protein of choice. This opens up the potential for multifunctional nano-systems, where the function and structure of the particle material itself might be as important as the therapeutic payload.

Nanoparticle assembly of surface-modified proteins

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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