Physicochemical characterization of lipid mixtures for liposomal formulations of polyenes.

Abstract

The use of liposomes or lipid nanoparticles as a drug delivery systems have been under development for more than 40 years and they are up to now the most used targeted drug delivery system in clinical applications, e.g, Ambisome(R) (an amphotericin B liposomal formulation) and several of the COVID-19 vaccines. Among the main critical parameters that guarantee the successful use of these systems is the lipid composition, which will determine their size and surface charge. We recently developed a new liposome system that showed in previous preclinical studies the capability of delivering a polyene antimycotic in a safer and equally effective way than the direct IV administration of the polyene in solution. We present the preliminary results of characterizing the size and zeta potential of this formulation by means of Tunable Resistive Pulse Sensing as well as topographic and nanomechanical properties by Atomic Force Microscopy images of supported lipid bilayers of these liposomes. We compare these results with the existing liposomal formulation for amphotericin B. We believe that this liposomal system could be further used with other drugs that present low water solubility and/or toxic side effects. Funding: PAPIIT-100920, CONACyT-CF2019-74884.