Formation of Lipid Nanoparticles and Elucidation of Formation Mechanism

Abstract

In order to elucidate the formation mechanism of lipid nanoparticles in microfluidic devices, we investigated the formation behavior of lipid nanoparticles in microfluidic devices with a staggered herringbone micromixer structure. The microfluidic devices were fabricated with varying the staggered herringbone micromixer cycle numbers to confirm the effect of mixing the solutions on the LNP formation. 1-Palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) was dissolved in ethanol to obtain a concentration of 10 mg/mL lipid solution. 154 mM NaCl was used for the aqueous solution. The size of the lipid nanoparticles was analyzed by dynamic light scattering. From the obtained results, we assumed that the rapid decrease of ethanol concentration to its critical concentration was essential to form lipid nanoparticles.