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Updated: Oct 2, 2025
Biomolecular Imaging of Cellular Uptake of Nanoparticles using Multimodal Nonlinear Optical Microscopy
Published on: May 16, 2022
coupled Hydrodynamic Flow Focusing (cHFF) to Engineer Lipid-Polymer Nanoparticles (LiPoNs) for Multimodal Imaging and
Felicia Roffo1,2, Alfonso Maria Ponsiglione1, Paolo Antonio Netti1,2,3
1Department of Chemical, Materials and Production Engineering (DICMaPI), University of Naples Federico II, P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, Italy.
Abstract:
An optimal design of nanocarriers is required to overcome the gap between synthetic and biological identity, improving the clinical translation of nanomedicine. A new generation of hybrid vehicles based on lipid-polymer coupling, obtained by Microfluidics, is proposed and validated for theranostics and multimodal imaging applications. A coupled Hydrodynamic Flow Focusing (cHFF) is exploited to control the time scales of solvent exchange and the coupling of the polymer nanoprecipitation with the lipid self-assembly simultaneously, guiding the formation of Lipid-Polymer NPs (LiPoNs). This hybrid lipid-polymeric tool is made up of core-shell structure, where a polymeric chitosan core is enveloped in a lipid bilayer, capable of co-encapsulating simultaneously Gd-DTPA and Irinotecan/Atto 633 compounds. As a result, a monodisperse population of hybrid NPs with an average size of 77 nm, with preserved structural integrity in different environmental conditions and high biocompatibility, can be used for MRI and Optical applications. Furthermore, preliminary results show the enhanced delivery and therapeutic efficacy of Irinotecan-loaded hybrid formulation against U87 MG cancers cells.
