Nanobiotechnology: Cell Membrane-Based Delivery Systems

Abstract

The increasingly rapid pace of research in the field of bioinspired drug delivery systems is revealing the promise of cell membrane-based nanovesicles for biomedical applications. Those cell membrane-based nanoparticles combine the natural functionalities of cell plasma membranes and the bioengineering flexibility of synthetic nanomaterials, and such versatility provides a means of designing exciting new drug formulations for personalized treatment in future nanomedicine.

Keywords: Bio-inspired synthesis; Biomaterial; Cell membrane; Nanobiotechnology; Nanovesicles.

Figure 1

Schematic showing the antigen delivery system exhibiting biomembrane-directed viral protein antigen. The model cell lines are engineered to stably express viral protein fragments or whole trimeric enveloped glycoprotein (HA protein) on the cellular plasma membrane, which is then vesiculated with the help of surfactants to further produce size-controlled virus-mimetic vesicles (VMVs, 50–150 nm) for effective vaccination: viral antigen genes are transfected into cells (A) and the cells stably expressing antigen are acquired after selection of puromycin (B). The antigenic proteins are firstly located in endoplasmic reticulum (C), plasma membrane or Golgi complex (D), and then fused with cell plasma membrane (E) via the route of signal peptide sorting. The engineered cells are incubated with sodium deoxycholate to produce major cell membrane vesicles (MCV, 500–2500 nm) (F), and then the purified MCVs are further mixed with sodium deoxycholate and triton-X100 under ultrasonication to produce nano-sized VMVs (G). Mice vaccinated with VMV-HA are able to survive after being exposed to a lethal dose of mouse-adapted H1N1 virus (H). Adapted from Ref. with permission.