Title : Nature inspired nanoparticle based DNA vaccine
Abstract:
Recent advances in nanotechnology has greatly boosted the development of drug delivery systems for therapeutic and vaccine applications, in particular the great success in nanoparticle-based mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. To be noted, rational design and fabrication of safe and efficient nano-carries is the key to lead a successful technology development. It is noteworthy that the delivery performance could be possibly maximized by custom-designed nano-carriers considering the configuration and surface textures of both cargo biomolecules and target cell/environment. Here, we showcase our recent progress on the development of silica based advanced delivery platform.[1-3] Through a biomimetic approach, silica nanoparticles with an intrinsic spiky surface are fabricated and characterized by the unique tool of electron tomography.[4] We demonstrate that control over delicate nanotopography of silica nanoparticles as plasmid DNA vectors has significant impact on the transfection efficacy. A designer spiky of silica nanoparticles acts as hooks to entangle the DNA loops and protect the gene molecules sheltered in the spiky layer against nuclease degradation. Further in vivo demonstrations present enhanced immune responses mediated by spiky silica nanoparticle-mediated DNA vaccines, showing superior performance than the commercial product of in vivo JET-PEI. From bench to market, this spiky nanoparticle based delivery platform is on the industrial translation toward novel nanoparticle-based vaccine technology.
