Lipid and polymer stabilized microbubbles are used in medicine as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging and are being developed for the delivery of water soluble drugs to diseased areas of the body.However,many new t...Lipid and polymer stabilized microbubbles are used in medicine as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging and are being developed for the delivery of water soluble drugs to diseased areas of the body.However,many new therapeutics exhibit poor water solubility or stability,which has led to the requirement for the development of effective hydrophobic drug delivery systems.This study presents a new method to produce microbubbles coated with an oil layer capable of encapsulating hydrophobic drugs and suitable for targeted,triggered drug release.This new method utilizes highly controllable flow-focusing microfluidics with lipid oil nanodroplets self-assembling and spreading at gas–aqueous interfaces.Oil layer inside microbubbles were produced with diameters of 2.4±0.3μm(s.d.,1.6μm)and at concentrations up to 10^(6) bubbles per milliliter.The mechanism of oil layer inside microbubble assembly and stability were characterized using methods including contact angle measurements,quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring and fluorescence resonance energy transfer imaging.展开更多
基金We gratefully acknowledge the financial sponsorship of the EPSRC(Grant No.EP/K023845/1)the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Molecular-Scale Engineering(Grant No.1229421)SDE like to thank the NIHR-HTC for Colorectal Therapies,the MRC-CiC,and the Wellcome Trust ISSF Scheme for financial support.
文摘Lipid and polymer stabilized microbubbles are used in medicine as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging and are being developed for the delivery of water soluble drugs to diseased areas of the body.However,many new therapeutics exhibit poor water solubility or stability,which has led to the requirement for the development of effective hydrophobic drug delivery systems.This study presents a new method to produce microbubbles coated with an oil layer capable of encapsulating hydrophobic drugs and suitable for targeted,triggered drug release.This new method utilizes highly controllable flow-focusing microfluidics with lipid oil nanodroplets self-assembling and spreading at gas–aqueous interfaces.Oil layer inside microbubbles were produced with diameters of 2.4±0.3μm(s.d.,1.6μm)and at concentrations up to 10^(6) bubbles per milliliter.The mechanism of oil layer inside microbubble assembly and stability were characterized using methods including contact angle measurements,quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring and fluorescence resonance energy transfer imaging.
