Posted by A young researcher working at the Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique has recently published the major advances of his PhD dissertation (soon to be defended) with his coworkers entitled in a peculiar way probably also reflecting his Slavic cultural background [1]. The title of the journal paper is “Matryoshka-Type Liposomes Offer the Improved Delivery of Temoporfin to Tumor Spheroids”.
The study aimed to develop double-loaded encapsulating temoporfin/cyclodextrin inclusion complexes in temoporfin-loaded liposomes. The authors called this vehicle as “matryoshka-type hybrid nanoparticles”. This system was expected to improve the transport of temoporfin to target tissues and to strengthen its accumulation in the tumor tissue. Double-loaded hybrid nanoparticles were prepared, characterized, and tested in 2D and 3D in vitro models and in xenografted mice in vivo. The studies indicated that hybrid nanoparticles provided deep penetration of temoporfin into the multicellular tumor spheroids via cyclodextrin nanoshuttles once the liposomes had been destabilized by serum proteins. Unexpectedly, the authors observed similar photodynamic therapy efficiency in xenografted HT29 tumors for liposomal temoporfin formulation (Foslip®) and hybrid nanoparticles.
Although the drug-in-cyclodextrin-in-liposomes concept has already been described (and patented) nearly a quarter of a century ago [2,3], the above work shows the potential in creativity by exploiting the benefits of using both lipid bilayers and cyclodextrins in a combined drug delivery system.
Credits: The unrestricted use graphical abstract shown above was permitted by the publisher due to the proper citation the original work.
[1] I. Yakavets et al.: Cancers, 11(9), 1366 (2019)
[2] Y. L. Loukas et al.: Int. J. of Pharmaceutics 117, 85, (1995)
[3] G. Gregoriadis and B. McComarck: PCT patent application WO9515746