Lipid Nanoparticles Optimized for Targeting and Release of Nucleic Acid

Abstract

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are currently the most promising clinical nucleic acids drug delivery vehicles. LNPs prevent the degradation of cargo nucleic acids during blood circulation. Upon entry into the cell, specific components of the lipid nanoparticles can promote the endosomal escape of nucleic acids. These are the basic properties of lipid nanoparticles as nucleic acid carriers. As LNPs exhibit hepatic aggregation characteristics, enhancing targeting out of the liver is a crucial way to improve LNPs administrated in vivo. Meanwhile, endosomal escape of nucleic acids loaded in LNPs is often considered inadequate, and therefore, much effort is devoted to enhancing the intracellular release efficiency of nucleic acids. Here, different strategies to efficiently deliver nucleic acid delivery from LNPs are concluded and their mechanisms are investigated. In addition, based on the information on LNPs that are in clinical trials or have completed clinical trials, the issues that are necessary to be approached in the clinical translation of LNPs are discussed, which it is hoped will shed light on the development of LNP nucleic acid drugs.

Keywords: endosomal escape; lipid nanoparticles; nucleic acid delivery; organ targeting.