Enhanced cellular uptake of engineered spider silk particles

Title data

Elsner, Martina B. ; Herold, Heike M. ; Müller-Herrmann, Susanne ; Bargel, Hendrik ; Scheibel, Thomas:
Enhanced cellular uptake of engineered spider silk particles.
In: Biomaterials Science. Vol. 3 (January 2015) . - pp. 543-551.
ISSN 2047-4849
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/c4bm00401a

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Abstract in another language

Drug delivery systems allow tissue/cell specific targeting of drugs in order to reduce total drug amounts
administered to an organism and potential side effects upon systemic drug delivery. Most drug delivery
systems are polymer-based, but the number of possible materials is limited since many commercially
available polymers induce allergic or inflammatory responses or lack either biodegradability or the
necessary stability in vivo. Spider silk proteins represent a new class of (bio)polymers that can be used as
drug depots or drug delivery systems. The recombinant spider silk protein eADF4(C16), which can be processed
into different morphologies such as particles, films, or hydrogels, has been shown to fulfil most
criteria necessary for its use as biomaterial. Further, eADF4(C16) particles have been shown to be wellsuited
for drug delivery. Here, a new method was established for particle production to reduce particle
size and size distribution. Importantly, cellular uptake of these particles was shown to be poor in HeLa
cells. Therefore, variants of eADF4(C16) with inversed net charge or incorporated cell penetrating peptides
and receptor interacting motifs were tested, showing much better cellular uptake. Interestingly, uptake of
all silk variant particles was mainly achieved by clathrin-mediated endocytosis.