Chemical and structural investigation of lipid nanoparticles: drug-lipid interaction and molecular distribution

Lipid nanoparticles are a promising alternative to existing carriers in chemical or drug delivery systems. A key challenge is to determine how chemicals are incorporated and distributed inside nanoparticles, which assists in controlling chemical retention and release characteristics. This study reports the chemical and structural investigation of gamma-oryzanol loading inside a model lipid nanoparticle drug delivery system composed of cetyl palmitate as solid lipid and Miglyol 812 (R) as liquid lipid. The lipid nanoparticles were prepared by high pressure homogenization at varying liquid lipid content, in comparison with the gamma-oryzanol free systems. The size of the lipid nanoparticles, as measured by the photon correlation spectroscopy, was found to decrease with increased liquid lipid content from 200 to 160 nm. High-resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance (H-1-NMR) measurements of the medium chain triglyceride of the liquid lipid has confirmed successful incorporation of the liquid lipid in the lipid nanoparticles. Differential scanning calorimetric and powder x-ray diffraction measurements provide complementary results to the H-1-NMR, whereby the crystallinity of the lipid nanoparticles diminishes with an increase in the liquid lipid content. For the distribution of gamma-oryzanol inside the lipid nanoparticles, the H-1-NMR revealed that the chemical shifts of the liquid lipid in gamma-oryzanol loaded systems were found at rather higher field than those in gamma-oryzanol free systems, suggesting incorporation of gamma-oryzanol in the liquid lipid. In addition, the phase-separated structure was observed by atomic force microscopy for lipid nanoparticles with 0% liquid lipid, but not for lipid nanoparticles with 5 and 10% liquid lipid. Raman spectroscopic and mapping measurements further revealed preferential incorporation of gamma-oryzanol in the liquid part rather than the solid part of in the lipid nanoparticles. Simple models representing the distribution of gamma-oryzanol and lipids (solid and liquid) inside the lipid nanoparticle systems are proposed.