1.1.2 Drug Ion Electrical Properties and Drug Loading Capacity
The interaction between the drug and the phospholipid layer molecule has an important effect on the structure and load of the liposome, and the effect of the charge effect is particularly significant. Generally, when the charge properties of the drug and the phospholipid molecular layer are the same, it is not easy to be encapsulated. By adding appropriate excipients during the preparation of the liposome to make it a charged liposome opposite to the charge of the encapsulated drug, the drug encapsulation rate can be improved. For example, in the preparation process, octadecylamine is added to obtain positively charged liposomes, and phosphatidic acid is added to obtain negatively charged liposomes. The antiviral drug cidofovir is negatively charged under normal physiological conditions. It is found that liposomes made with positively charged phospholipids composed of DOTAP and DC have a significantly higher encapsulation rate than liposomes made with electrically neutral phospholipids. However, other studies have shown that when the positively charged drug sumatriptan uses a neutral phospholipid as the membrane material, the encapsulation rate is low, and when the positively charged material stearylamide is added to the membrane material, the phospholipid membrane is significantly strengthened, thereby t lop09he leakage of the drug is prevented, and the drug load is increased. However, the encapsulation efficiency was lower than that of positively charged membranes after the addition of negatively charged membrane dicetyl phosphate, indicating that in some drug encapsulation processes, charge is not the main factor influencing.
1.1.3 Decoration and Encapsulation Rate of Medicinal Chemical Structure
The chemical structure of a drug determines its physical and chemical properties. By modifying the structure of a drug to some extent, the hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties of the drug can be improved, thereby improving the encapsulation efficiency of the drug. Researchers reacted the anticancer drug cyclocytidine with palmitic acid to obtain two derivatives of monopalmitate and dipalmitate, which were separately encapsulated to prepare liposomes. As a result, the encapsulation rates of the two derivatives were found. It rose to 86.5% and 93.7% respectively, while the original drug was only 21%. The HLB value shows that on the one hand, the original drug is converted from hydrophilic to lipophilic after esterification, and the encapsulation position of the drug is correspondingly transferred from the aqueous phase to the external lipid phase. On the other hand, the long ester chain obtained by structural modification can be embedded in the lipid membrane. In addition, the fluidity of the lipid membrane is reduced, thereby increasing the liposome stability and encapsulation efficiency.
- Liposomal particle size design
Particle size is an important evaluation index of liposomes, and its size and degree of uniform dispersion directly affect the in vivo behavior of liposomes. Large particle size liposomes are easily endocytosed by macrophages and concentrated in the liver. Smaller particle size liposomes can effectively prolong the circulation time of the drug and play a long-lasting effect. When the particle size is less than 50nm, liposomes can penetrate the liver endothelium and enter the spleen, bone marrow and tumor tissues. Duan Yisong et al etc. used long-circulating material polyethylene glycol to prepare mitoxantrone long-circulating liposomes with an average particle size of 60nm. Compared with ordinary liposomes, the average residence time in rabbits was prolonged by 6.2h, reflecting Its long cycle advantage. Awasthi et al. Investigated the particle size on the circulation time of PEG-modified liposomes in rabbits and found that the optimal particle size is 160–220 nm. Large particle size liposomes (400–530nm) are highly targeted to liver and spleen-enriched reticular macrophages. When the liposome particle size increases to 1–12 μm, it is easily taken up by the lungs. After azithromycin was prepared into cationic liposomes, the mice were administered tail vein to study the distribution of azithromycin in mouse whole blood and various tissues. AUC increased by 7.4 times. This is because liposomes larger than 6 μm will be mechanically filtered by pulmonary capillaries and then taken up by monocytes into lung tissue.
- Preparation method selection
The preparation method of liposomes greatly affects the structure and particle size of liposomes, so it is generally selected according to the nature of the drug and the purpose of the drug. For fat-soluble drugs, mechanical dispersion methods such as film dispersion method and freeze-drying method can be selected to prepare multilayer liposomes with large particle diameters, so that the drug is slowly released in the target tissue. If you need to increase the drug’s transport speed, you can choose to prepare small single-compartment liposomes. The main methods include ethanol injection, surfactant treatment, film-ultrasonic method, and so on. The drug loading of water-soluble components is generally not high. The key is to increase the volume of the aqueous phase in the liposome. Therefore, large monolayer or polycystic liposomes are generally selected for preparation. The reverse thin film dispersion method and the double emulsion method and the freeze-thaw method are suitable for the preparation of large particle size aqueous drug-loaded liposomes. Among them, the reverse thin film dispersion method is mostly large monolayer liposomes, including The sealing rate can reach 60–65%, and some studies have shown that for the hydrophilic drug salvianolic acid B, the large monolayer liposomes (LUV) prepared by the reverse evaporation method, the ethanol injection method, and the double emulsion method are used. Compared with liposomes, the encapsulation rate is the highest. The repeated freeze-thaw process in the freeze-thaw method will be accompanied by the formation of ice crystals, which will cause mechanical damage to the phospholipid bilayer, thereby increasing the chance of water-soluble drugs entering the phospholipid bilayer and increasing the encapsulation rate. At the same time, multi-compartment liposomes can be prepared into small single-compartment liposomes by repeated extrusion and freeze-thaw methods, which increases the drug loading space and drug loading. In addition, the microencapsulation method is suitable for preparation Small-particle-size drug-loaded liposomes in aqueous phase. For amphiphilic drugs such as weak base and weak acid, they can be encapsulated by active drug loading methods, such as PH gradient method, ammonium sulfate gradient method metal ion gradient method, and so on. In some cases, a single method alone cannot meet the requirements of encapsulation efficiency and particle size, especially for compound drugs with different properties in the co-loading concentration, so it is often combined with several methods.