Adsorption kinetics of plasma proteins on oil-in-water emulsions for parenteral nutrition

The plasma protein adsorption patterns on colloidal drug carriers are regarded as an important factor for their in vivo fate. In this study the adsorption kinetics on oil-in-water emulsions were determined and compared to the adsorption kinetics on polystyrene particles. In addition, the adsorption kinetics on the same systems after surface-modification with a hydrophilic polymer were also investigated. The protein adsorption was determined by means of two dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE). The determination of the plasma protein adsorption kinetics was carried out using different concentrations of human plasma in the incubation medium to prolong the residence time of the more abundant plasma proteins on the surface. Proteins which are likely to be displaced in a split second are thus accessible to analysis. The oil-in-water emulsion showed a distinctly different adsorption behavior from the one previously described for solid surfaces, where initially adsorbed proteins are displaced by others, having a higher affinity to the surface ('Vroman effect'). No competitive protein adsorption could be observed on the emulsions. Moreover, the predominantly adsorbed apolipoproteins A-I, A-IV, C-II and C-m increase in amount with increasing plasma concentration. The knowledge of the adsorption kinetics of colloidal carriers might be helpful for a better understanding of the in vivo behavior of such systems and for the transfer of principles already known from other carrier systems to the controlled development of emulsions for site specific drug delivery. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.