Cell Membrane Coating Technology

In the past few years, a new class of biomimetic nanoparticles (NPs) has been reported that combines the advantages of natural, cell membrane-derived vesicles with more traditional synthetic nanoparticulate platforms. With over a decade of experience and state-of-the-art cell surface engineering platforms, Creative Biolabs provides cell membrane coating technology to effectively support our customers' requirements.

Cell Membrane Coating Technology in Creative Biolabs

Recently, NPs have been extensively explored in diagnostic and therapeutic contexts, with potential applications and various advantages such as improving targeting by modifying ligands and protecting their cargo from inactivation or degradation before target delivery in vivo. However, when synthetic NPs are introduced to in vivo applications, they are easily considered intruders by the innate immune system and readily cleared by the reticuloendothelial system (RES), thus quickly losing their functionalities.

Creative Biolabs now offers cell membrane coating technology that has recently been studied extensively to overcome these limitations. The biomimetic cell membrane-coated NPs (CM-NPs) directly leverage the versatility and complexity of cellular membrane and the physical and chemical properties of the nanocarrier. By translocating the entire membrane from cells onto the surface of NPs, all biologically relevant surface moieties are transferred, including those that can potentially be used for immune evasion and targeting, two highly desirable properties. Additionally, as the membrane coatings are structurally and functionally similar to those of host cells, they can express specific markers useful for proper NP delivery. These unique properties of our cell membrane coating technology make it a promising strategy for many biomedical applications.

Fig.1 Cell membrane coating. (Liu, 2019)

A top-down strategy for Cell Membrane Coating

Cell membrane coating is a simple top-down approach that utilizes cell membrane as a carrier facilitating the targeted delivery of core NPs, bypassing the need for complicated chemistry, and identifying individual membrane components. Conventional generation of CM-NPs in Creative Biolabs is separated into three key steps: membrane extraction, inner core nanocarrier production, and the fusion process, each of which is the key to resultant NP functionalization. Extrusion and ultrasound production are the main methods to prepare NPs coated with cell membranes. Moreover, microfluidic electroporation is a means of preparing more stable and uniform CM-NPs. Particles could be coated using a sonication method or formed inside of cell vesicles using a cell membrane-templated gelation technique. With these coating techniques, it has been shown that NP cores ranging from 65 nm to 340 nm in diameter can be successfully coated.

Available Cell Membrane Coating Technologies in Creative Biolabs

• Erythrocyte membrane-coated nanoparticle (RBC-NP) engineering
• Platelets membrane-coated nanoparticle (PLT-NP) engineering
• Cancer cell membrane-coated nanoparticle (CC-NP) engineering
• Bacterial membrane-coated nanoparticle (BM-NP) engineering
• Stem cell membrane-coated nanoparticle (SC-NP) engineering
• Leukocyte membrane-coated nanoparticle (WBC-NP) engineering
• Hybrid cell membrane-coated nanoparticles (HC-NP) engineering

Fig.2 Applications of cell membrane coating. (Kroll, 2017)

Cell membrane coating can be used for many NPs, including but not limited to polymers, liposomes, silica, iron oxide NPs, metal materials, new two-dimensional materials, some drug formulations (e.g., micelles, nanogel, and nanocrystals). The diverse array of combinations could greatly expand the scope of cell membrane coating technologies. Although cell membrane coating technology has not yet achieved full clinical implementation, its clear advantages and abundant cell membrane sources offer a solid foundation for industrial production and implementation in individual precision medicine approaches. This cell membrane coating strategy has demonstrated utility for a variety of purposes, including drug delivery, imaging and phototherapy, detoxification, and immunotherapy.

With our extensive experience and robust platform, Creative Biolabs offers cell membrane coating technology with the biomimetic replication of cell membrane properties. If you are interested in our technology and custom services, please contact us for more detailed information.

References

1. Liu, Y.; et al. Cell membrane coating technology: a promising strategy for biomedical applications. Nano-Micro Letters. 2019, 11(1), pp.1-46.
2. Kroll, A.V.; et al. Biointerfacing and applications of cell membrane-coated nanoparticles. Bioconjugate chemistry. 2017, 28(1), pp.23-32.