Churchman, AH orcid.org/0000-0001-8826-7583, Mico, V, Gala De Pablo, J orcid.org/0000-0003-0557-9632 et al. (3 more authors) (2018) Combined flow-focus and self-assembly routes for the formation of lipid stabilized oil-shelled microbubbles. Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 4. 17087.
Abstract
Lipid and polymer stabilized microbubbles are used in medicine as contrast agents for ultrasound imaging and are being developed for the delivery of water soluble drugs to diseased areas of the body. However, many new therapeutics exhibit poor water solubility or stability, which has led to the requirement for the development of effective hydrophobic drug delivery systems. This study presents a new method to produce microbubbles coated with an oil layer capable of encapsulating hydrophobic drugs and suitable for targeted, triggered drug release. This new method utilizes highly controllable flow-focusing microfluidics with lipid oil nanodroplets self-assembling and spreading at gas–aqueous interfaces. Oil layer inside microbubbles were produced with diameters of 2.4±0.3 μm (s.d., 1.6 μm) and at concentrations up to 106 bubbles per milliliter. The mechanism of oil layer inside microbubble assembly and stability were characterized using methods including contact angle measurements, quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring and fluorescence resonance energy transfer imaging.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2018. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | microbubbles; microfluidics; drug-delivery; hydrophobic; lipid-coated; oil-shelled |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/P023266/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 15 Mar 2018 17:43 |
Last Modified: | 16 Dec 2024 14:32 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/micronano.2017.87 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:128511 |