Development of an Ionic Liquid Based Method for the Preparation of Albumin Nanoparticles

Abstract

Albumin based nanocarriers have been widely used in drug delivery studies. Here, we developed a water‐in‐ionic liquid (IL) emulsion‐like method to prepare bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles as alternative to the traditional organic solvents containing techniques. Conformational changes of albumin induced by the imidazolium based ILs at the water‐IL interface triggers the BSA nanoparticle formation. The albumin nanoparticle formation are dependent on the experimental parameters and the hydophobicity of the IL. At pH 9.0, using 1.3%wt of BSA in water/1‐butyl‐3‐methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BmimBF4) (50/50 mol%) and TX‐100/butanol surfactant mixture yields uniformly distributed 200 nm average sized BSA nanoparticles. Different than BmimBF4, using a more hydrophilic IL, EmimBF4 yielded albumin aggregates. Instead, using a more hydrophobic IL, HmimBF4 produced albumin nanoparticles but a non‐uniform size distribution was obtained. These results indicate that the ionic liquids called green and designer solvents can be also used to synthesize albumin nanoparticles.

Characterization of Water Solubility and Binding of Spin Labeled Drugs in the Presence of Albumin Nanoparticles and Proteins by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

“…Albumin nanoparticles can be prepared with different ways including desolvation, emulsification, thermal gelation, nano spray drying, etc [21–26] . Among these methods, desolvation has been preferred often because of its easy, cheap and rapid procedure.…”

Recent Advances in Ionic Liquids in Biomedicine

“…[121] Recently, Hamadani www.advancedsciencenews.com www.advancedscience.com Reproduced with permission. [131] Copyright 2018, Wiley-VCH. et al developed protein avoidant choline carboxylic acid ILs to coat polymeric particles.…”

“…[130] A water/imidazolium tetrafluoroborate solution was used to synthesize bovine serum albumin NPs with well controlled size, as seen in Figure 5. [131] This occurs because the albumin undergoes conformational changes at the IL/water interface, spontaneously forming particles of different sizes depending on the length of the side chain on the cation. Cellante et al [132] used a pyrrolidinium hydrogen sulfate IL as a solvent and a catalyst to link a peptide to nanocellulose using a Fisher esterification.…”

“…IL charge and amphiphilicity characteristics have aided in the synthesis of a variety of polymer and protein nanoparticles, making potential drug carriers easier and safer to produce than the conventional methods. [ 115 , 116 , 117 , 118 , 119 , 120 , 121 , 125 , 128 , 130 , 131 , 132 , 133 ] In all, incorporating ILs into the synthesis or modification of nanocarriers is a promising emerging application for this solvent class. Careful selection of the IL components can impact the success of the synthesis procedure and the biocompatibility of the final material, and because the ILs retain their properties once placed onto the surfaces of nanoparticles, the tunability of ILs can be exploited to control the relationships between nanoparticles and their environments.…”

“…Figure 5. a) SEM image of BSA nanoparticles prepared by in IL. b) Particle size distribution obtained from the SEM image.Reproduced with permission [131]. Copyright 2018, Wiley-VCH.…”