Cross-Platform Comparison of Therapeutic Delivery from Multilamellar Lipid-Coated Polymer Nanoparticles

Significant efforts have been invested in finding a delivery system that can encapsulate and deliver therapeutics. Core-shell polymer-lipid hybrid nanoparticles have been studied as a promising platform because of their mechanical stability, narrow size distribution, biocompatibility, and ability to co-deliver diverse drugs. Here, novel core-shell nanoparticles based on a poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) core and multilamellar lipid shell are designed, where the lipid bilayers are crosslinked between the two adjacent bilayers (PLGA-ICMVs). The cross-platform performance of the nanoparticles to other polymer-lipid hybrid platforms is examined, including physicochemical characteristics, ability to encapsulate a variety of therapeutics, biocompatibility, and functionality as a vaccine delivery platform. Differential abilities of nanoparticle systems to encapsulate distinct pharmaceutics are observed, which suggest careful consideration of the platform chosen depending on the therapeutic agent and desired function. The novel PLGA-ICMV platform herein demonstrates great potential in stably encapsulating water-soluble agents and therefore is an attractive platform for therapeutic delivery.