Zhang Xiaoxuan, Chen Guopu, Cai Lijun, Fan Lu, Zhao Yuanjin
Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
Oujiang Laboratory (Zhejiang Lab for Regenerative Medicine, Vision and Brain Health), Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325001, China.
Research (Wash D C). 2022 Jul 20;2022:9797482. doi: 10.34133/2022/9797482. eCollection 2022.
Micromotors have demonstrated values in drug delivery, and recent attempts focus on developing effective approaches to generate functional micromotors to improve this area. Here, with the integration of microfluidic droplet printing and wettability-induced drawing photolithography, we present an innovative spatiotemporal serial multistep dip-printing strategy to generate novel independent microneedle motors (IMNMs) for orally delivering macromolecular drugs. As the strategy combines the advantages of the hydrophilic wettability, extension effects, and capillary effects, the IMNMs with an oblate basement and a needle-shaped head or a core-shell structured multicomponent head can be created by simply printing pregel droplets layer by layer, following with simultaneous wiredrawing and solidification. Owing to the polarized magnetic particles in the bottom basement and the rapidly dissolvable polymers as the middle basement, the resultant IMNMs can respond to magnetic fields, move to desired places under a magnet, penetrate tissue-like substrates, induce head-basement separation, and leave only the needles for cargo release. Based on these features, we have demonstrated that these IMNMs can deliver insulin via intestinal tracts to realize effective blood glucose control of diabetic rabbit models. These results indicate the practical values and bright future of the dip-printing stratagem and these IMNMs in clinical applications.
微马达已在药物递送中展现出价值，近期的尝试聚焦于开发有效的方法来制造功能性微马达以改善该领域。在此，通过将微流控液滴打印与润湿性诱导拉伸光刻相结合，我们提出了一种创新的时空序列多步浸印策略，以制造用于口服递送大分子药物的新型独立微针马达（IMNMs）。由于该策略结合了亲水性润湿性、延伸效应和毛细效应的优点，通过简单地逐层打印预凝胶液滴，随后同时进行拉丝和固化，就可以制造出具有扁圆形基底和针状头部或核壳结构多组分头部的IMNMs。由于底部基底中的极化磁性颗粒以及作为中间基底的快速可溶解聚合物，所得的IMNMs能够响应磁场，在磁铁作用下移动到所需位置，穿透类似组织的基质，诱导头部与基底分离，并且仅留下针用于货物释放。基于这些特性，我们已经证明这些IMNMs可以通过肠道递送胰岛素，以实现对糖尿病兔模型的有效血糖控制。这些结果表明浸印策略以及这些IMNMs在临床应用中的实用价值和光明前景。
