Sulpholipids

Creative Biolabs has years of experience in providing custom lipid-based drug delivery (LDD) services for global customers. Our services involve rational design and development for directed evolution to improve drug stability, solubility and activity as well as to discover novel functions. Our strong expertise in delivery system design allows us to help clients tackle the challenges and accelerate the design and development of drug delivery.

Introduction of Sulpholipids

Sulfolipids, a class of sulphur containing lipids, constitute a biologically important group of compounds whose representatives are found in microorganisms. It is important to realize that the term sulpholipid does not refer to any chemically distinct groups of compounds, instead, it covers a wide range of chemical types; it merely indicates a particular chemical feature of the molecule, i.e., the presence of sulphur. Mammalian brain and kidney are the richest sources of sulpholipids. The abundant sulfolipid is sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerol which is composed of a glycoside of sulfoquinovose and diacylglycerol. In plants, sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerides are important members of the sulfur cycle. Other important sulfolipids include sulfatide and seminolipid, which are all sulfated glycolipids.

The Role of Sulpholipids in Drug Delivery

Nanoscale drug carriers for targeted drug delivery have great potential to address problems associated with conventional drug administration, such as non-specific biodistribution of drugs; lack of drug-specific affinity and the need for large doses to achieve high locality concentration; through biological barriers such as organs, cells and intracellular biostrates; non-specific toxicity and other adverse side effects (immunity, nervous system, etc.) due to high doses of drugs. Sulfolipids have some applications as carriers in drug delivery. For an example, it is a component of bacterial magnetosomes (BMs), which have recently drawn great interest due to their unique features. BMs are used experimentally as carriers for antibodies, enzymes, ligands, nucleic acids, and chemotherapeutic drugs. In addition to the common attractive properties of magnetic carriers, BMs also show superiority as targeting nanoscale drug carriers, which is hardly matched by artificial magnetic particles. The magnetosome membrane contains neutral lipids and free fatty acids, as well as glycolipids, sulfolipids, and phospholipids. Magnetosomes premodified with anticancer drugs can be linked with radioactive isotope-labeled antibodies and can recognize carcinoembryonic antigens. The multifunctional magnetosomes can simultaneously be used as molecular probes for tumor detection with MRI and as targeting drug carriers for tumor chemotherapy and radioimmunotherapy combined with magnetic hyperthermia.

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of multifunctional BMs. (Jianbo Sun, 2011)

In addition to sulpholipids composed of magnetosomes, Creative Biolabs offers other customized formulations based on our lipid-based drug delivery (LDD) platform. For information on other formulations we offer, please browse the "LDD formulation" section. You’re also welcome to contact us if you need any further information.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use