Engineering Well-Characterized PEG-Coated Nanoparticles for Elucidating Biological Barriers to Drug Delivery.
Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) coatings can substantially reduce nanoparticle uptake and clearance by immune cells as well as nonspecific interactions with the biological environment, thus potentially improving nanoparticle circulation times and biodistribution in target tissues such as tumors. Naturally, the "stealth" properties of PEG coatings are critically dependent on the density and conformation of surface PEG chains. However, there are significant technical hurdles to both generating sufficiently dense PEG coatings on nanoparticles and precisely characterizing their PEG grafting densities. Here, we describe methods for preparing PEGylated polymeric nanoparticles with precisely tunable PEG coatings without the use of organic solvents, quantifying PEGylation efficiency and density using a standard fluorescence assay, and evaluating nanoparticle uptake by immune cells using flow cytometry.
Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Marsico 4213, 125 Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Qi
Q
Yang
Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Marsico 4213, 125 Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA. lai@unc.edu.
Samuel K
SK
Lai
D002460:Cell Line; D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000737:chemistry; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D008264:Macrophages / Q000378:metabolism; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols / Q000737:chemistry; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence
D004337:Drug Carriers; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols
Macrophage uptake; Nanoparticles; PEG conformation; PEG density; Poly(ethylene glycol)