Intracellular delivery of messenger RNA (mRNA) has the potential to induce protein production for many therapeutic applications. Although lipid nanoparticles have shown considerable promise for the delivery of small interfering RNAs (siRNA), their utility as agents for mRNA delivery has only recently been investigated. The most common siRNA formulations contain four components: an amine-containing lipid or lipid-like material, phospholipid, cholesterol, and lipid-anchored polyethylene glycol, the relative ratios of which can have profound effects on the formulation potency. Here, we develop a generalized strategy to optimize lipid nanoparticle formulations for mRNA delivery to the liver in vivo using Design of Experiment (DOE) methodologies including Definitive Screening and Fractional Factorial Designs. By simultaneously varying lipid ratios and structures, we developed an optimized formulation which increased the potency of erythropoietin-mRNA-loaded C12-200 lipid nanoparticles 7-fold relative to formulations previously used for siRNA delivery. Key features of this optimized formulation were the incorporation of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine (DOPE) and increased ionizable lipid:mRNA weight ratios. Interestingly, the optimized lipid nanoparticle formulation did not improve siRNA delivery, indicating differences in optimized formulation parameter design spaces for siRNA and mRNA. We believe the general method described here can accelerate in vivo screening and optimization of nanoparticle formulations with large multidimensional design spaces.

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B lymphocytes regulate several aspects of immunity including antibody production, cytokine secretion, and T-cell activation; moreover, B cell misregulation is implicated in autoimmune disorders and cancers such as multiple sclerosis and non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. The delivery of messenger RNA (mRNA) into B cells can be used to modulate and study these biological functions by means of inducing functional protein expression in a dose-dependent and time-controlled manner. However, current in vivo mRNA delivery systems fail to transfect B lymphocytes and instead primarily target hepatocytes and dendritic cells. Here, the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) system that can encapsulate mRNA, navigate to the spleen, transfect B lymphocytes, and induce more than 60 pg of protein expression per million B cells within the spleen is described. Importantly, this LNP induces more than 85% of total protein production in the spleen, despite LNPs being observed transiently in the liver and other organs. These results demonstrate that LNP composition alone can be used to modulate the site of protein induction in vivo, highlighting the critical importance of designing and synthesizing new nanomaterials for nucleic acid delivery.

mRNA has broad potential for treating diseases requiring protein expression. However, mRNA can also induce an immune response with associated toxicity. Replacement of uridine bases with pseudouridine has been postulated to modulate both mRNA immunogenicity and potency. Here, we explore the immune response and activity of lipid nanoparticle-formulated unmodified and pseudouridine-modified mRNAs administered systemically in vivo. Pseudouridine modification to mRNA had no significant effect on lipid nanoparticle physical properties, protein expression in vivo, or mRNA immunogenicity compared to unmodified mRNA when delivered systemically with liver-targeting lipid nanoparticles, but reduced in vitro transfection levels. Indicators of a transient, extracellular innate immune response to mRNA were observed, including neutrophilia, myeloid cell activation, and up-regulation of four serum cytokines. This study provides insight into the immune responses to mRNA lipid nanoparticles, and suggests that pseudouridine modifications may be unnecessary for therapeutic application of mRNA in the liver.

In mammalian brain, D-serine is synthesized from L-serine by serine racemase, and it functions as an obligatory coagonist at the glycine modulatory site of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-selective glutamate receptors. Although diminution in D-serine level has been implicated in NMDA receptor hypofunction, which is thought to occur in schizophrenia, the source of the precursor L-serine and its role in D-serine metabolism in adult brain have yet to be determined. We investigated whether L-serine synthesized in brain via the phosphorylated pathway is essential for Dserine synthesis by generating mice with a conditional deletion of D-3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (Phgdh; EC 1.1.1.95). This enzyme catalyzes the first step in L-serine synthesis via the phosphorylated pathway. HPLC analysis of serine enantiomers demonstrated that both L-and D-serine levels were markedly decreased in the cerebral cortex and hippocampus of conditional knock-out mice, whereas the serine deficiency did not alter protein expression levels of serine racemase and NMDA receptor subunits in these regions. The present study provides definitive proof that Lserine-synthesized endogenously via the phosphorylated pathway is a key rate-limiting factor for maintaining steadystate levels of D-serine in adult brain. Furthermore, NMDAevoked transcription of Arc, an immediate early gene, was diminished in the hippocampus of conditional knock-out mice. Thus, this study demonstrates that in mature neuronal circuits L-serine availability determines the rate of Dserine synthesis in the forebrain and controls NMDA receptor function at least in the hippocampus.Glutamate is the principal excitatory neurotransmitter in mammalian brain, acting on ionotropic and metabotropic glutamate receptors. Ionotropic glutamate receptors can be divided into three classes based on their preference for the ligands N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA), 3 ␣-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionic acid, and kainate. Among these receptors, NMDA receptors have been implicated in synapse refinement, synaptic plasticity, and learning/memory as well as brain pathologies including excitotoxicity and psychiatric diseases (for review, see Refs. 1-3). Two NMDA receptor subunits, NR1 and NR2, form tetramers that comprise the functional receptors. For the NMDA receptor to function as a ligand-gated ion channel, a co-agonist must occupy the glycine modulatory site on NR1 coincident with glutamate binding to the transmitter recognition site on NR2 (4 -6).D-Serine occurs naturally in the adult brain of higher vertebrates and is particularly enriched in forebrain regions (7). This D-amino acid acts as an endogenous co-agonist at the glycine modulatory site of NMDA receptors (for review, see Refs. 8 -11). In the telencephalon, where D-serine is abundant (12), its distribution pattern resembles that of NR2A/B subunits (13). In contrast, immunoreactivity for free glycine is very low in telencephalon and is detected primarily in the hindbrain and hypothalamus, where NR2A/B expression is weaker than in ...