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Grolman E, Sirianni QEA, Dunmore-Buyze J, Cruje C, Drangova M, Gillies ER. Depolymerizing self-immolative polymeric lanthanide chelates for vascular imaging. Acta Biomater 2023; 169:530-541. [PMID: 37507034 DOI: 10.1016/j.actbio.2023.07.034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2023] [Revised: 07/03/2023] [Accepted: 07/22/2023] [Indexed: 07/30/2023]
Abstract
Medical imaging is widely used clinically and in research to understand disease progression and monitor responses to therapies. Vascular imaging enables the study of vascular disease and therapy, but exogenous contrast agents are generally needed to distinguish the vasculature from surrounding soft tissues. Lanthanide-based agents are commonly employed in MRI, but are also of growing interest for micro-CT, as the position of their k-edges allows them to provide enhanced contrast and also to be employed in dual-energy micro-CT, a technique that can distinguish contrast-enhanced blood vessels from tissues such as bone. Small molecule Gd3+ chelates are available, but are excreted too rapidly. At the same time, a lack of rapid clearance from the body for long-circulating agents presents toxicity concerns. To address these challenges, we describe here the use of self-immolative polymers for the development of new degradable chelates that depolymerize completely from end-to-end following the cleavage of a single end-cap from the polymer terminus. We demonstrate that tuning the end-cap allows the rate of depolymerization to be controlled, while tuning the polymer length enables the polymer to exhibit long circulation times in the blood of mice. After successfully providing one hour of blood contrast, depolymerization led to excretion of the resulting small molecule chelates into the bladder. Despite the high doses required for micro-CT, the agents were well tolerated in mice. Thus, these self-immolative polymeric chelates provide a new platform for the development of medical imaging contrast agents. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Vascular imaging is used clinically to diagnose and monitor vascular disease and in research to understand the progression of disease and study responses to new therapies. For techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and x-ray computed tomography (CT), long circulating contrast agents are needed to differentiate the vasculature from surrounding tissues. However, if these agents are not rapidly excreted from the body, they can lead to toxicity. We present here a new polymeric system that can chelate hundreds of lanthanide ions for imaging contrast and can circulate for one hour in the blood, but then after end-cap cleavage breaks down completely into small molecules for excretion. The successful application of this system in micro-CT in mice is demonstrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Grolman
- School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada; Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Quinton E A Sirianni
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Joy Dunmore-Buyze
- Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Charmainne Cruje
- Department of Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5C1, Canada
| | - Maria Drangova
- School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada; Robarts Research Institute, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5C1, Canada.
| | - Elizabeth R Gillies
- School of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada; Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada; Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, 1151 Richmond Street, London, Ontario N6A 5B9, Canada.
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Blocher McTigue WC, Sing CE. Competing Time Scales in Surface-Driven Solution Depolymerization. Macromolecules 2022. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.2c01528] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Whitney C. Blocher McTigue
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania18015, United States
| | - Charles E. Sing
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana−Champaign, Urbana, Illinois61801, United States
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Sirianni QEA, Wang TD, Borecki A, Deng Z, Ronald J, Gillies ER. Self-immolative Polyplexes for DNA Delivery. Biomater Sci 2022; 10:2557-2567. [DOI: 10.1039/d1bm01684a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Nucleic acids have immense potential for the treatment and prevention of a wide range of diseases, but delivery vehicles are needed to assist with their entry into cells. Polycations can...
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Sirianni QEA, Liang X, Such GK, Gillies ER. Polyglyoxylamides with a pH-Mediated Solubility and Depolymerization Switch. Macromolecules 2021. [DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.1c01796] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Quinton E. A. Sirianni
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
- The Centre for Advanced Materials and Biomaterials Research, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
| | - Xiaoli Liang
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
- The Centre for Advanced Materials and Biomaterials Research, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
| | - Georgina K. Such
- The School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
| | - Elizabeth R. Gillies
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
- The Centre for Advanced Materials and Biomaterials Research, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7
- Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B9
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Zhang C, Kermaniyan S, Smith SA, Gillies ER, Such GK. Acid-Responsive Poly(glyoxylate) Self-Immolative Star Polymers. Biomacromolecules 2021; 22:3892-3900. [PMID: 34410113 DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.1c00694] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Self-immolative polymers have significant potential for applications such as drug or gene delivery. However, to realize this potential, such materials need to be customized to respond to specific variations in biological conditions. In this work, we investigated the design of new star-shaped self-immolative poly(ethyl glyoxylate)s (PEtGs) and their incorporation into responsive nanoparticles. PEtGs are a subclass of stimulus-responsive self-immolative polymers, which can be combined with different stimuli-responsive functionalities. Two different tetrathiol initiators were used for the polymerization in combination with a variety of potential pH-responsive end-caps, yielding a library of star PEtG polymers which were responsive to pH. Characterization of the depolymerization behavior of the polymers showed that the depolymerization rate was controlled by the end caps rather than the architecture of the polymer. A selection of the star polymers were modified with amines to allow introduction of charge-shifting properties. It was shown that pH-responsive nanoparticles could be prepared from these modified polymers and they demonstrated pH-dependent particle disruption. The pH responsiveness of these particles was studied by dynamic light scattering and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Changhe Zhang
- The School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010 Victoria, Australia
| | - Sarah Kermaniyan
- The School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010 Victoria, Australia
| | - Samuel A Smith
- The School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010 Victoria, Australia
| | - Elizabeth R Gillies
- Department of Chemistry and the Centre for Advanced Materials and Biomaterials Research and Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada
| | - Georgina K Such
- The School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010 Victoria, Australia
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Greene AF, Vaidya A, Collet C, Wade KR, Patel M, Gaugler M, West M, Petcu M, Parker K. 3D-Printed Enzyme-Embedded Plastics. Biomacromolecules 2021; 22:1999-2009. [PMID: 33870685 DOI: 10.1021/acs.biomac.1c00105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
A simple and environmentally friendly approach toward the thermoplastic processing of rapidly degradable plastic-enzyme composites using three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques is described. Polycaprolactone/Amano lipase (PCL/AL) composite films (10 mm × 10 mm; height [h] = ∼400 μm) with an AL loading of 0.1, 1.0, and 5.0% were prepared via 3D printing techniques that entail direct mixing in the solid state and thermal layer-by-layer extrusion. It was found that AL can tolerate in situ processing temperatures up to 130 °C in the solid-state for 60 min without loss of enzymatic activity. The composites were degraded in phosphate buffer (8 mg/mL, composite to buffer) for 7 days at 37 °C and the resulting average percent total weight loss (WLavg %) was found to be 5.2, 92.9, and 100%, for the 0.1, 1.0, and 5.0% films, respectively. The degradation rates of PCL/AL composites were found to be faster than AL applied externally in the buffer. Thicker PCL/AL 1.0% films (10 mm × 10 mm; h = ∼500 μm) were also degraded over a 7 day period to examine how the weight loss occurs over time with 3.0, 18.1, 36.4, 46.4, and 70.2% weight loss for days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7, respectively. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis shows that the film's percent crystallinity (Dxtal%) increases over time with Dxtal% = 46.5 for day 0 and 53.1% for day 7. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis found that film erosion begins at the surface and that water can penetrate the interior via surface pores activating the enzymes embedded in the film. Controlled release experiments utilizing dye-loaded PCL/AL/dye (AL = 1.0%; dye = 0.1%) composites were degraded over a 7 day period with the bulk of the dye released by the fourth day. The PCL/AL multimaterial objects containing AL-resistant polylactic acid (PLA) were also printed and degraded to demonstrate the application of this material on more complex structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Angelique F Greene
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Alankar Vaidya
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Christophe Collet
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Kelly R Wade
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Meeta Patel
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Marc Gaugler
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Mark West
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Miruna Petcu
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
| | - Kate Parker
- Scion, Te Papa Tipu Innovation Park, 49 Sala Street, Rotorua 3010, New Zealand
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