Abstract
NOF manufactures and supplies highly purified phospholipid derivatives suitable for liposome formulations which are extensively used for pharmaceuticals. And we has provided novel phospholipid derivatives, ‘SUNBRIGHT® DSPE-PG8’ series. Use of these lipids enables researchers to obtain highly pH-sensitive carriers for efficient cytoplasmic delivery of bioactive molecules. As the example of carriers, we designed pH-sensitive liposomes. These liposomes were stable at physiological pH, but became destabilized and fusogenic significantly responding sharply to very small pH change in weakly acidic pH region. They delivered their contents (pyranine) into cytosol of dendritic cell-derived DC2.4 cells. When these pH-sensitive liposomes loaded with antigenic protein ovalbumin (OVA) were subcutaneously administered to mice, the antigen-specific cellular immunity was efficiently induced in the mice.
