Cytotoxicity of nanoparticle-loaded polymer capsules

Polymeric multilayer capsules delivering biotherapeutics

“…However, several studies have pointed out that both planar films as well as capsules consisting of polyelectrolyte complexes do not exhibit significant toxicity. [7,100,101] Therefore, a thorough debate should be performed in order to assess in which conditions polycation related toxicity might be an issue or not. On the other hand, there are several research groups switching from the use of electrostatic interactions to the use of hydrogen bonding as driving for multilayer assembly, thus avoiding the use of polycations.…”

Intracellular delivery and sensing based on polyelectrolyte multilayer capsules

“…The average of six (PEI capsules) and three (PEI solution) independent measurements is displayed. Higher amounts of encapsulated PEI could not be measured as there is a threshold at which the capsules themselves can induce toxicity if added in too high quantities to the cells [48,63]. The error bars represent standard deviations of the mean.…”

“…For the capsules, larger amounts of PEI than plotted were not added to the cells because at some point the capsules themselves may introduce adverse effects [48,63], and furthermore the cells do not have the capability to take up arbitrarily high numbers of capsules. Nonetheless, the graphs show that the toxicity of encapsulated PEI is much smaller than that of free PEI.…”

Nanoparticle-functionalized microcapsules for in vitro delivery and sensing

“…Though the actual mechanism for internalization is still not fully unraveled, most studies agree that the internalized capsules are fi nally located in the lysosome. For most in vitro applications there is no acute cytotoxicity [26,27] . Even in vivo administration generates only a moderate immune reaction upon subcutaneous and mucosal administration similar to some of natural and synthetic polymer-based particles such as polylactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) [26,28] .…”