A Multiscale Study of Phosphorylcholine Driven Cellular Phenotypic Targeting

ABSTRACT: Phenotypic targeting requires the ability of the drug delivery system to discriminate over cell populations expressing a particular receptor combination. Such selectivity control can be achieved using multiplexed-multivalent carriers often decorated with multiple ligands. Here, we demonstrate that the promiscuity of a single ligand can be leveraged to create multiplexedmultivalent carriers achieving phenotypic targeting. We show how the cellular uptake of poly(2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl late) (PMPC-PDPA) polymersomes varies depending on the receptor expression among different cells. We investigate the PMPC-PDPA polymersome insertion at the single chain/receptor level using all-atom molecular modeling. We propose a theoretical statistical mechanics-based model for polymersome-cell association that explicitly considers the interaction of the polymersome with the cell glycocalyx shedding light on its effect on the polymersome binding. We validate our model experimentally and show that the binding energy is a nonlinear function, allowing us to tune the interaction by varying the radius and degree of polymerization. Finally, we show that PMPC-PDPA polymersomes can be used to target monocytes in vivo due to their promiscuous interaction with SRB1, CD36, and CD81.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates that the promiscuity of a single ligand can be used to create multiplexed-multivalent carriers for phenotypic targeting. The researchers developed a theoretical model and validated it experimentally to understand the interaction between polymersomes and cell glycocalyx. They also showed that the polymersomes can be used to target monocytes in vivo due to their promiscuous interaction with certain receptors.