Lipid Matrices for Nanoencapsulation in Food: Liposomes and Lipid Nanoparticles. In: Hernández-sánchez H, Gutiérrez-lópez GF, editors. Food Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. pp. 99-143. [DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-13596-0_7]

Biomimetic Nanovesicles—Sources, Design, Production Methods, and Applications

Despite all the progress in the field of liposomes and nanoparticles for applications as drug and gene delivery systems, the specific targeting and immune system escape capabilities of these systems are still limited. Biomimetic nanovesicles emerged as a strategy to overcome these and other limitations associated with synthetic carriers, such as short circulation time, cytotoxicity, and difficulty in crossing biological barriers, since many of the desirable abilities of drug delivery systems are innate characteristics of biological vesicles. Thus, the question arises: would biomimetic nanovesicles be responsible for addressing these advances? It is currently known that biomimetic nanovesicles (BNV) can combine the intrinsic advantages of natural materials with the well-known production methods and controllability of synthetic systems. Besides, the development of the biotechnology and nanotechnology fields has provided a better understanding of the functionalities of biological vesicles and the means for the design and production of biomimetic nanovesicles (BNV). Based on this, this work will focus on tracking the main research on biomimetic nanovesicles (BNV) applied as drug and gene delivery systems, and for vaccines applications. In addition, it will describe the different sources of natural vesicles, the technical perspectives on obtaining them, and the possibility of their hybridization with synthetic liposomes.

Crystallization of Femtoliter Surface Droplet Arrays Revealed by Synchrotron Small-Angle X-ray Scattering

The crystallization of oil droplets is critical in the processing and storage of lipid-based food and pharmaceutical products. Arrays of femtoliter droplets on a surface offer a unique opportunity to study surfactant-free colloidlike systems. In this work, the crystal growth process in these confined droplets was followed by cooling a model lipid (trimyristin) from a liquid state utilizing synchrotron small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The measurements by SAXS demonstrated a reduced crystallization rate and a greater degree of supercooling required to trigger lipid crystallization in droplets compared to those of bulk lipids. These results suggest that surface droplets crystallize in a stochastic manner. Interestingly, the crystallization rate is slower for larger femtoliter droplets, which may be explained by the onset of crystallization from the three-phase contact line. The larger surface nanodroplets exhibit a smaller ratio of droplet volume to the length of three-phase contact line and hence a slower crystallization rate.