Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 13, 2026
Detection of Intracellular Gene Expression in Live Cells of Murine, Human and Porcine Origin Using Fluorescence-labeled Nanoparticles
Published on: November 13, 2015
Non-invasive nanoparticle barcoding in nonhuman primates
Bora Jang1, Ryan Zenhausern1, Liming Lian1
1Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Abstract:
The clinical relevance of a lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-mRNA drug candidate is often dictated by its behavior in nonhuman primates. Yet, evaluating how chemically distinct LNPs behave in nonhuman primates remains difficult, in part because nanoparticle barcoding assays require euthanasia and difficult downstream tissue processing. Here we report non-invasive nanoparticle barcoding, which quantifies functional mRNA delivery mediated by several LNPs in a single nonhuman primate using 30 µl of serum. This method is enabled by snapCodes, benzylguanine-modified DNA barcodes that covalently bind an mRNA-encoded nanoluciferase-SNAP-tag fusion protein in vivo. The resulting DNA-fusion protein complexes are exported from cells, isolated from serum and sequenced. After validating snapCode and fusion protein activity, we intravenously administer six snapCoded LNPs to mice and nonhuman primates, thereby comparing LNP delivery across species. Measuring mRNA delivery from multiple LNPs using a low-volume blood draw reduces animal use and may help identify promising nanoparticle formulations.
