Integrating antigen capturing nanoparticles and type 1 conventional dendritic cell therapy for in situ cancer immunization.

Eliciting a robust immune response against tumors is often hampered by the inadequate presence of effective antigen presenting cells and their suboptimal ability to present antigens within the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Here, we report a cascade antigen relay strategy integrating antigen capturing nanoparticles (AC-NPs) and migratory type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1s), named Antigen Capturing nanoparticle Transformed Dendritic Cell therapy (ACT-DC), to facilitate in situ immunization. AC-NPs are engineered to capture antigens directly from the tumor and facilitate their delivery to adoptively transferred migratory cDC1s, enhancing antigen presentation to the lymph nodes and reshaping the tumor microenvironment.

Protocols for isolation and characterization of nanoparticle biomolecular corona complexes.

Engineered nanoparticles (NPs) pose a broad spectrum of interesting properties that make them useful for many applications. However, continuous exposure to NPs requires the need to deeply understand the outcomes when these NPs interact with different biological environments. After exposure within (to) these environments, the pristine surfaces of NPs strongly interact with the molecules from the surrounding medium, including metabolites, lipids, glycan, and proteins, forming the so-called protein corona (PC).

Development of a fast and simple method for the isolation of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles protein corona from protein-rich matrices.

The adsorption of proteins onto the surface of nanoparticle (NP) leads to the formation of the so-called "protein corona" as consisting both loosely and tightly bound proteins. It is well established that the biological identity of NPs that may be acquired after exposure to a biological matrix is mostly provided by the components of the hard corona as the pristine surface is generally less accessible for binding. For that reason, the isolation and the characterisation of the NP-corona complexes and identification of the associated biomolecules can help in understanding its biological behaviour.

Elevated concentrations of Neu5Ac and Neu5,9Ac in human plasma: potential biomarkers of cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a group of health conditions affecting the heart and vascular system with very high prevalence and mortality rates. The presence of CVD is characterised by high levels of inflammation which have previously been associated with increased plasma concentrations of N-acetyl neuraminic acid (Neu5Ac). While Neu5Ac has been studied in the context of CVD, Neu5,9Ac has not, despite being the second most abundant sialic acid in human plasma.

Biomolecular Corona Stability in Association with Plasma Cholesterol Level.

Biomolecular corona is spontaneously formed on the surface of nanoparticles (NPs) when they are in contact with biological fluids. It plays an important role in the colloidal stability of NPs, which is of importance for most of their medical applications and toxicity assessment. While typical studies use either blood plasma or serum from a pooled biobank, it is unclear whether differences in the media, such as cholesterol level or protein concentration, might affect the NP colloidal stability and corona composition.

Nanoparticle Biomolecular Corona-Based Enrichment of Plasma Glycoproteins for N-Glycan Profiling and Application in Biomarker Discovery.

Biomolecular corona formation has emerged as a recurring and important phenomenon in nanomedicine that has been investigated for potential applications in disease diagnosis. In this study, we have combined the "personalized protein corona" with the N-glycosylation profiling that has recently gained considerable interest in human plasma biomarker discovery as a powerful early warning diagnostic and patient stratification tool. We envisioned that the protein corona formation could be exploited as an enrichment step that is critically important in both proteomic and proteoglycomic workflows.

Probing the glycans accessibility in the nanoparticle biomolecular corona.

Hypothesis: Following blood administration, the pristine surface of nanoparticles (NPs) associates with biomolecules from the surrounding environment forming the so-called "biomolecular corona". It is well accepted that the biomolecular corona dramatically affects the NP fate in the biological medium while the pristine surface is no longer available for binding. Recent studies have shown that the glycans associated with the proteins forming the corona have a role in the NP interaction with macrophages, but the glycan identities remain unknown.

Identification of physicochemical properties that modulate nanoparticle aggregation in blood.

Inorganic materials are receiving significant interest in medicine given their usefulness for therapeutic applications such as targeted drug delivery, active pharmaceutical carriers and medical imaging. However, poor knowledge of the side effects related to their use is an obstacle to clinical translation. For the development of molecular drugs, the concept of safe-by-design has become an efficient pharmaceutical strategy with the aim of reducing costs, which can also accelerate the translation into the market.