Detailed Structure of Diamond-Type Lipid Cubic Nanoparticles

摘要

Supramolecular three-dimensional self-assembly of nonlamellar lipids with fragments of the protein immunoglobulin results in a bicontinuous cubic phase fragmented into nanoparticles with open water channels (cubosomes).The structure of the diamond-type cubic nanoparticles is characterized experimentally by freeze-fracture electron microscopy,and it is mathematically modeled with nodal surfaces emphasizing the fluid-like undulations of the cubosomic interfaces.Based on scaling-up and scating-down approaches,we present stable and intermediate-kind nanoparticles resulting from the cubosomic growth.Our results reveal the smallest stable diamond-type cubosomic entity that can serve as a building block of more complex nanostructured fluid drug delivery vehicles of therapeutic proteins.The evidence presented for lipid-bilayer undulations in the surface region of the protein/lipid cubosomes could have important consequences for possible applications of these hierarchically organized porous nanoparticles.