Mucosomes: Intrinsically Mucoadhesive Glycosylated Mucin Nanoparticles as Multi‐Drug Delivery Platform

Abstract

Mucus is a complex barrier for pharmacological treatments and overcoming it is one of the major challenges faced during transmucosal drug delivery. To tackle this issue, a novel class of glycosylated nanoparticles, named "mucosomes," which are based on the most important protein constituting mucus, the mucin, is introduced. Mucosomes are designed to improve drug absorption and residence time on the mucosal tissues. Mucosomes are produced (150-300 nm), functionalized with glycans, and loaded with the desired drug in a single one-pot synthetic process and, with this method, a wide range of small and macro molecules can be loaded with different physicochemical properties. Various in vitro models are used to test the mucoadhesive properties of mucosomes. The presence of functional glycans is indicated by the interaction with lectins. Mucosomes are proven to be storable at 4 °C after lyophilization, and administration through a nasal spray does not modify the morphology of the mucosomes. In vitro and in vivo tests indicate mucosomes do not induce adverse effects under the investigated conditions. This study proposes mucosomes as a ground-breaking nanosystem that can be applied in several pathological contexts, especially in mucus-related disorders.

Increasing Bioavailability of Trans-Ferulic Acid by Encapsulation in Functionalized Mesoporous Silica

“…Additional FA quantities can be released in large bowel as a function of the actual transit time. In addition, after FA loading, the APTES functionalized MCM-41 or MCM-48 particles can be embedded in a mucoadhesive system [ 64 , 65 ], that will allow modulation of residence time and FA recovery [ 66 ]. Furthemore, by comparing with antimicrobial drugs, such as antibiotics, the negative environmental impact is low as these systems don’t lead to antimicrobial resistance.…”

Protein Coronas Derived from Mucus Act as Both Spear and Shield to Regulate Transferrin Functionalized Nanoparticle Transcellular Transport in Enterocytes

“…Mucus is a water, protein, and lipid enriched with a viscoelastic hydrogel-like structure, and it also possesses hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains as well as the negative charge, which gives the mucus the ability to adsorb and entrap a variety of particles and molecules, including drugs and their carriers. , It was reported that the two main reasons that the mucosa BB layer affects drug absorption were an encumbering of the movement of drugs via its viscosity and mesh-like physical particle filtering barrier, and that its interaction with drugs is influenced by its complex physicochemical properties (pH, negative charge, chemical substance interactions with hydrophobic domains, etc. ). , The favorable physiochemical characteristics of nano drug delivery systems (NDDS) have achieved good experimental and clinical results in overcoming problems relating to mucus interfacing and penetration, and have mainly been explored through exploiting three strategies (mucoadhesion, mucopenetration, and mucolytics). − For example, Shen et al constructed mucus-penetrating and villi-binding micelles, in which the polyzwitterion (poly­[2-(N-oxide-N,N-diethylamino)­ethyl methacrylate]; OPDEA) modification endowed the micelles with the capability to permeate through the viscous mucus to rapidly and tightly bind cells for transport. A major advantage of these micelles was that they were highly nonfouling to proteins while exhibiting weak binding to phospholipids and thereby could deliver paclitaxel efficiently for tumor treatment via oral administration .…”

Mucin coated protein-polyphenol microcarriers for daidzein delivery

“…Recently, Butnarasu et al 33 reported mucosomes (a novel class of glycosylated nanoparticles based on mucin) as a multi-drug delivery platform for pharmacological treatments. The mucosomes appeared to be resistant to proteolytic activity of intestinal proteases delaying release of encapsulated ingredient for 2 hours, which is typical duration of the intestinal digestion phase.…”