Lipid Nanoparticle Composition Effects on Stability and Neutrophil Inhibition

Presenter: Narine Lucia Berberian

Faculty Sponsor: Ashish Kulkarni

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Disease Detection, Prevention & Treatment

Session: Poster Session 4, 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM, 163, C3

ABSTRACT

Neutrophils are part of our innate immune system, the body’s first line of response to disease. When activated normally, neutrophils can fight off pathogens and protect us against disease, however, in some cases, an overactive immune response can lead to inflammatory diseases. The goal of this project is to study the effects of lipid nanoparticle composition on lipid nanoparticle stability and neutrophil inhibition. I am working under a graduate mentor, Adam Fish, developing a project that is a smaller branch off of his current research. Adam’s project focuses on modulating the activation of the inflammatory pathways in neutrophils. These pathways play a major role in inflammatory diseases such as pancreatitis, psoriasis, and arthritis. Adam is working with both polymer nanoparticles (PNPs) and lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) to modulate neutrophil activation for different disease models. We are using the PNPs to target activation pathways as a therapy for cancer and the LNPs to inhibit or reduce activation as a therapy for inflammatory diseases. I am working with LNPs, specifically looking at how altering their chemical composition affects their stability and their effect on neutrophils. Traditionally, we have used PEG-COOH to synthesize our LNPS, but I am using a PEG-maleimide substitution that allows for peptide conjugation. I am testing this by synthesizing the PEG-maleimide LNPs, testing their stability, and performing internalization assays with neutrophils. So far in this process, I have found that the PEG-maleimide substitution in the LNPs does not affect its stability. I hypothesize that the LNPs conjugated with peptide I will synthesize will be able to inhibit neutrophil activation. 

RELATED ABSTRACTS