New clathrin-based nanoplatforms for magnetic resonance imaging

Construction and Functionalization of a Clathrin Assembly for a Targeted Protein Delivery

Protein assemblies have drawn much attention as platforms for biomedical applications, including gene/drug delivery and vaccine, due to biocompatibility and functional diversity. Here, the construction and functionalization of a protein assembly composed of human clathrin heavy chain and light chain for a targeted protein delivery, is presented. The clathrin heavy and light chains are redesigned and associated with each other, and the resulting triskelion unit further self-assembled into a clathrin assembly with the size of about 28 nm in diameter. The clathrin assembly is dual-functionalized with a protein cargo and a targeting moiety using two different orthogonal protein-ligand pairs through one-pot reaction. The functionalized clathrin assembly exhibits about a 900-fold decreased K_D value for a cell-surface target due to avidity compared to a native targeting moiety. The utility of the clathrin assembly is demonstrated by an efficient delivery of a protein cargo into tumor cells in a target-specific manner, resulting in a strong cytotoxic effect. The present approach can be used in the creation of protein assemblies with multimodality.

Clathrin-nanoparticles deliver BDNF to hippocampus and enhance neurogenesis, synaptogenesis and cognition in HIV/neuroAIDS mouse model

Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) promotes the growth, differentiation, maintenance and survival of neurons. These attributes make BDNF a potentially powerful therapeutic agent. However, its charge, instability in blood, and poor blood brain barrier (BBB) penetrability have impeded its development. Here, we show that engineered clathrin triskelia (CT) conjugated to BDNF (BDNF-CT) and delivered intranasally increased hippocampal BDNF concentrations 400-fold above that achieved previously with intranasal BDNF alone. We also show that BDNF-CT targeted Tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) and increased TrkB expression and downstream signaling in iTat mouse brains. Mice were induced to conditionally express neurotoxic HIV Transactivator-of-Transcription (Tat) protein that decreases BDNF. Down-regulation of BDNF is correlated with increased severity of HIV/neuroAIDS. BDNF-CT enhanced neurorestorative effects in the hippocampus including newborn cell proliferation and survival, granule cell neurogenesis, synaptogenesis and increased dendritic integrity. BDNF-CT exerted cognitive-enhancing effects by reducing Tat-induced learning and memory deficits. These results show that CT bionanoparticles efficiently deliver BDNF to the brain, making them potentially powerful tools in regenerative medicine.

Coating and Stabilization of Liposomes by Clathrin-Inspired DNA Self-Assembly

The self-assembly of the protein clathrin on biological membranes facilitates essential processes of endocytosis and has provided a source of inspiration for materials design by the highly ordered structural appearance. By mimicking the architecture of the protein building blocks and clathrin self-assemblies to coat liposomes with biomaterials, advanced hybrid carriers can be derived. Here, we present a method for fabricating DNA-coated liposomes by hydrophobically anchoring and subsequently connecting DNA-based triskelion structures on the liposome surface inspired by the assembly of the protein clathrin. Dynamic light scattering, ζ-potential, confocal microscopy, and cryo-electron microscopy measurements independently demonstrate successful DNA coating. Nanomechanical measurements conducted with atomic force microscopy show that the DNA coating enhances the mechanical stability of the liposomes relative to uncoated ones. Furthermore, we provide the possibility to reverse the coating process by triggering the disassembly of the DNA coats through a toehold-mediated displacement reaction. Our results describe a straightforward, versatile, and reversible approach for coating and stabilizing lipid vesicles through the assembly of rationally designed DNA structures. This method has potential for further development toward the ordered arrangement of tailored functionalities on the surface of liposomes and for applications as hybrid nanocarriers.

Surface impact on nanoparticle-based magnetic resonance imaging contrast agents

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most widely used diagnostic tools in the clinic. To improve imaging quality, MRI contrast agents, which can modulate local T1 and T2 relaxation times, are often injected prior to or during MRI scans. However, clinically used contrast agents, including Gd3+-based chelates and iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs), afford mediocre contrast abilities. To address this issue, there has been extensive research on developing alternative MRI contrast agents with superior r1 and r2 relaxivities. These efforts are facilitated by the fast progress in nanotechnology, which allows for preparation of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) with varied size, shape, crystallinity, and composition. Studies suggest that surface coatings can also largely affect T1 and T2 relaxations and can be tailored in favor of a high r1 or r2. However, the surface impact of NPs has been less emphasized. Herein, we review recent progress on developing NP-based T1 and T2 contrast agents, with a focus on the surface impact.

Nanoparticles as contrast agents for brain nuclear magnetic resonance imaging in Alzheimer's disease diagnosis

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of amyloid plaques is a powerful non-invasive approach for the early and accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) along with clinical observations of behavioral changes and cognitive impairment. The present article aims at giving a critical and comprehensive review of recent advances in the development of nanoparticle-based contrast agents for brain MRI. Nanoparticles considered for the MRI of AD must comply with a highly stringent set of requirements including low toxicity and the ability to cross the blood-brain-barrier. In addition, to reach an optimal signal-to-noise ratio, they must exhibit a specific ability to target amyloid plaques, which can be achieved by grafting antibodies, peptides or small molecules. Finally, we propose to consider new directions for the future of MRI in the context of Alzheimer's disease, in particular by enhancing the performances of contrast agents and by including therapeutic functionalities following a theranostic strategy.

[Contrast agents in MRI-diagnosis of multiple sclerosis]

Magnetic resonance imaging using contrast agents plays an important role in diagnosis and assessment of treatment efficacy in multiple sclerosis. The development of contrast agents on the basis of gadolinium or iron oxide nanoparticles has potential for diagnosis of pathological foci (tumors, amyloid plaques, inflammation and foci of demyelination or necrosis) in nervous system diseases. Newly developing types of diagnostic substances for visualization of pathological foci in multiple sclerosis are presented in this review.

New perspectives on using brain imaging to study CNS stimulants

While the recent application of brain imaging to study CNS stimulants has offered new insights into the fundamental factors that contribute to their use and abuse, many gaps remain. Brain circuits that mediate pleasure, dependence, craving and relapse are anatomically, neurophysiologically and neurochemically distinct from one another, which has guided the search for correlates of stimulant-seeking and taking behavior. However, unlike other drugs of abuse, metrics for tolerance and physical dependence on stimulants are not obvious. The dopamine theory of stimulant abuse does not sufficiently explain this disorder as serotonergic, GABAergic and glutamagergic circuits are clearly involved in stimulant pharmacology and so tracking the source of the "addictive" processes must adopt a more multimodal, multidisciplinary approach. To this end, both anatomical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), MR spectroscopy (MRS) and positron emission tomography (PET) are complementary and have equally contributed to our understanding of how stimulants affect the brain and behavior. New vistas in this area include nanotechnology approaches to deliver small molecules to receptors and use MRI to resolve receptor dynamics. Anatomical and blood flow imaging has yielded data showing that cognitive enhancers might be useful adjuncts in treating CNS stimulant dependence, while MRS has opened opportunities to examine the brain's readiness to accept treatment as GABA tone normalizes after detoxification. A desired outcome of the above approaches is being able to offer evidence-based rationales for treatment approaches that can be implemented in a more broad geographic area, where access to brain imaging facilities may be limited. This article is part of the Special Issue entitled 'CNS Stimulants'.

Convection enhanced delivery of different molecular weight tracers of gadolinium-tagged polylysine

Convection enhanced delivery (CED) is a powerful method of circumventing the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to deliver therapeutic compounds directly to the CNS. While inferring the CED distribution of a therapeutic compound by imaging a magnetic resonance (MR)-sensitive tracer has many advantages, however how the compound distribution is affected by the features of the delivery system, its target tissue, and its molecular properties, such as its binding characteristics, charge, and molecular weight (MW) are not fully understood. We used MR imaging of gadolinium diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA)-tagged polylysine compounds of various MW, in vitro and in vivo, to measure the dependence of compounds MW on CED distribution. For the in vitro studies, the correlation between volume of distribution (Vd) as a function of MW was determined by measuring the T1 of the infused tracers, into 0.6% agarose gels through a multiport catheter. The compounds distributed in the gels inversely proportional to their MW, consistent with convection and unobstructed diffusion through a porous media. For the in vivo studies, Gd-DTPA tagged compounds were infused into the non-human primate putamen, via an implanted multiport catheter connected to a MedStream™ pump, programmed to deliver a predetermined volume with alternating on-off periods to take advantage of the convective and diffusive contributions to Vd. Unlike the gel studies, the higher MW polylysine-tracer infusions did not freely distribute from the multiport catheter in the putamen, suggesting that distribution was impeded by other properties that should also be considered in future tracer design and CED infusion protocols.

Unraveling protein-protein interactions in clathrin assemblies via atomic force spectroscopy

Atomic force microscopy (AFM), single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), and single particle force spectroscopy (SPFS) are used to characterize intermolecular interactions and domain structures of clathrin triskelia and clathrin-coated vesicles (CCVs). The latter are involved in receptor-mediated endocytosis (RME) and other trafficking pathways. Here, we subject individual triskelia, bovine-brain CCVs, and reconstituted clathrin-AP180 coats to AFM-SMFS and AFM-SPFS pulling experiments and apply novel analytics to extract force-extension relations from very large data sets. The spectroscopic fingerprints of these samples differ markedly, providing important new information about the mechanism of CCV uncoating. For individual triskelia, SMFS reveals a series of events associated with heavy chain alpha-helix hairpin unfolding, as well as cooperative unraveling of several hairpin domains. SPFS of clathrin assemblies exposes weaker clathrin-clathrin interactions that are indicative of inter-leg association essential for RME and intracellular trafficking. Clathrin-AP180 coats are energetically easier to unravel than the coats of CCVs, with a non-trivial dependence on force-loading rate.

Anisotropic nanocrystal arrays organized on protein lattices formed by recombinant clathrin fragments

Recombinant clathrin protein fragments form assemblies that template gold nanocrystals in an array across the latticed surface. The nanocrystals exhibit unusual anisotropic morphologies with long range ordering, both of which are dependent upon the presence of a hexahistidine tag on the clathrin heavy chain fragments.