Chem. J. Chinese Universities ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (6): 20210837.doi: 10.7503/cjcu20210837

• Polymer Chemistry • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Muco-inert and Acid-sensitive Modification on Mucosal Penetration of Nanoparticles

JI Fa1, LIU Ling1, YU Linling1,2(), SUN Yan1,2   

  1. 1.Department of Biochemical Engineering,School of Chemical Engineering and Technology
    2.Key Laboratory of Systems Bioengineering and Frontiers Science Center for Synthetic Biology,Ministry of Eduction,Tianjin University,Tianjin 300350,China
  • Received:2021-12-17 Online:2022-06-10 Published:2022-02-15
  • Contact: YU Linling E-mail:yulinling@tju.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    the National Natural Science Foundation of China(21878223);the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin from Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Commission, China(19JCQNJC05200)

Abstract:

Gastric cancer, cervical carcinoma, lung cancer are occurred in mucosa, and the nanoparticles provided a competitive way for the diagnosis and therapy of these diseases. However, the mucus layer which contains mucus and other viscous substances could adsorb and remove the foreign substance, resulting the hindered penetration of nanoparticles. In this paper, a pH-responsive mucus-inert nanoparticle was designed for penetrating mucus and entering mucosal epithelial cells. In brief, mesoporous silica nanoparticles with surface amination(MSNs-NH2) was prepared by sol-gel method. Then, the zwitterionic polymer was modified to the surface of MSNs-NH2 by atom transfer radical polymerization to form mucus-inert particles(MSNs-pCBMA). Acid-sensitive molecule DMMA was modified onto MSNs-pCBMA through amino groups on the particle surface to obtain pH-responsive mucus-inert nanoparticles(MSNs-pCBMA-DMMA). The results of transmission electron microscopy(TEM), proton nuclear magnetic resonance(1H NMR),Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer(FTIR) and Zeta potential measurements showed that four nanoparticles were synthesized successfully, and MSNs-pCBMA-DMMA exhibited sensitive pH response at pH= 7.4—5.7. A mucus-containing Transwell? model was used to study the permeability of nanoparticles in mucus. The penetration results showed that within 4 h, the mucus permeability of MSNs-pCBMA-DMMA reached 16.3%, 1.9 times that of MSNs-pCBMA and 3 times that of MSNs-NH2, and its relative apparent permeability coefficient reached 2.96 calculated with the apparent penetration coefficient(Papp) of MSNs-NH2 as the reference. In addition, the grafting pCBMA improved the penetration rate of nanoparticles in mucus and the modification of DMMA further improved the penetration rate. Cytotoxic test showed that the viability of cells cultured with 100 μg/mL MSNs- pCBMA-DMMA was 78.3% in 24 h, indicating its good biosafety. The cellular uptake experiment showed that MSNs-pCBMA-DMMA could be endocytosed effectively at 4 h, and exhibited better endocytosis performance compared with other particles. The work proved that the combination of mucus inertia and acid sensitivity can effectively promote the mucosal permeability of nanoparticles, and MSNs-pCBMA-DMMA has excellent mucus permeability. The experimental results would benefit the design of nanoparticles for the diagnosis and therapy of mucosal diseases.

Key words: Nanoparticles, Zwitterionic polymer, Diffusion, Cell uptake, Mucus penetration

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