Micelles

Delivery system design and adjuvant development are important for research of improving vaccine. Peptide amphiphilic micelles are a class of biological materials that have unique potential as both self-adjuvants and vaccine delivery vehicles. In terms of our extensive experience in delivery system development, Creative Biolabs is proud to offer our clients a series of Micelle-based adjuvants for vaccine delivery with the best quality and most competitive price.

In the development of subunit vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer, which involves purified or recombinant antigens, it is essential to develop safe adjuvants that are capable of efficiently targeting antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells (DC). Nanoparticle-based antigen delivery systems are considered as an innovative strategy to increase the efficacy of subunit vaccines. Among them, self-assembled micellar nanoparticles from amphipathic (macro) molecules have recently become promising candidates.

The Advantages of Micelles

Advances in genomics and proteomics have provided the vaccine field with a large amount of potential target antigens, including synthetic peptides, DNA, and recombinant proteins. Although these well-defined antigens are safe, they have a very short half-life in vivo and can not always effectively elicit an immune system response when administered alone without any adjuvants. Considering the key issues in infectious disease and cancer research, scientists are dedicated to developing new and improved vaccine adjuvants such as emulsions, liposomes or nanoparticles. Micelles are core-shell nanoparticles that spontaneously self-assemble in water to form single amphiphilic (hydrophobic/hydrophilic) molecules. Micelles have been used as drug delivery vehicles, and recently micellar nanoparticles have been explored as very valuable adjuvants for vaccine delivery by encapsulation/protection of hydrophobic drugs in the core of the micelles.

Advantages compared to non-micellar adjuvant systems:

Small size (<100 nm). Micelles help deliver antigens to antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in draining lymph nodes, such as dendritic cells (DCs). These micelles are not only associated with DCs at the injection site but also target DCs by traveling through lymphatic vessels to lymph nodes to promote germinal center formation.
Easily display suitable surface properties (nature, surface charge) by selecting the appropriate micellar corona biocompatible hydrophilic fragments.
Through appropriate chemical design of hydrophobic and hydrophilic blocks, various other immunostimulatory molecules can readily be incorporated into these systems in a controlled manner to induce enhanced activation of DCs.

Classification of Micelles

There are two main types of micellar nanocarriers that can be used as adjuvant vaccines. The first is polymeric micelles, amphiphilic (i.e., hydrophobic-hydrophilic) block copolymers that are used to self-assemble into micelles while antigenic peptides are associated to the latter through either encapsulation or surface-coupled. The second is peptide amphiphiles, an antigenic peptide used as a hydrophilic head group and is covalently bound to a hydrophobic moiety for self-assembly into Micelles.

Micelles

Polymeric Micelles

The amphiphilic chemicals have the ability to form micelles in aqueous solution. Micelles are generated when the hydrophobic portions are driven to an internal structure and the hydrophilic portions are turned outward toward the water. Creative Biolabs provides a range of polymeric micelles for our clients, including polylactide (PLA) based micelles, polypeptide based micelles and pH responsive micelles. Among these, polylactide (PLA) based nanoparticles and microparticles have been widely studied as safe adjuvants for their good biocompatibility and biodegradability.

Peptide Amphiphiles

Peptide amphiphiles are micelles obtained from self-assembly of peptide antigen amphiphiles in water. PA consists of a hydrophobic lipid tail attached to the head group of a hydrophilic bio-functional peptide. PAs self-assemble into micelles under aqueous conditions, where the antigenic peptides are displayed on the outside and the tails are buried in the core away from the water.

The promising micelles have significantly improved the field of vaccine engineering. These systems are capable of exhibiting high and controlled immune response through appropriate chemical modification (appropriate surface charge, adjustable size, pH sensitivity, and reactive groups for antigen peptide / immune-stimulatory molecule immobilization, etc.). Indeed, there is room for improvement of micelles use as vaccine carriers for human vaccines, but they are still competitive candidates for vaccine delivery.

For years, Creative Biolabs has consistently and effectively supported the vaccine development industry with a unique range of products and related services. Contact us, and you will get the suitable micelle-based adjuvants for your vaccine delivery with the most competitive price and the best quality.

Reference

1. Trimaille T; et al. Micelle-Based Adjuvants for Subunit Vaccine Delivery. Vaccines (Basel). 2015, 3(4): 803-13.

All of our products can only be used for research purposes. These vaccine ingredients CANNOT be used directly on humans or animals.