Standard purification methods are not sufficient to remove micellular lipophilic dye from polymer nanoparticle
Eric H Sterin1, Laura A Weinstein1, Chitran Roy Chowdhury1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Delaware Newark DE 19713 USA emilyday@udel.edu.
RSC Pharmaceutics
|March 14, 2025
Abstract:
Tracking nanoparticles' location is imperative for understanding cellular interactions, pharmacokinetics, and biodistribution. DiD is a lipophilic dye commonly used to label nanoparticles for trafficking studies. Herein, we show that DiD micelles form in polymer NP solutions during synthesis and can lead to false positive results in downstream assays. Potential methods to remove these micelles are also described.


