Nanobodies Outperform Antibodies - Rapid Functionalization with Equal In Vivo Targeting Properties.

Highly specific targeting of dendritic cells in vivo is crucial for the development of effective tumor nanovaccines. This group recently presented an antibody-functionalized nanocarrier system able to maintain its targeting properties when transferred from in vitro to in vivo studies. However, producing this system requires long synthesis times and involves high expenses due to the involved site-specific enzymatic multi-step modification procedure of the antibody.

Uptake of extracellular vesicles into immune cells is enhanced by the protein corona.

The influence of a protein corona on the uptake of nanoparticles in cells has been demonstrated in various publications over the last years. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), can be seen as natural nanoparticles. However, EVs are produced under different cell culture conditions and little is known about the protein corona forming on EVs and its influence on their uptake by target cells.

Proteomics reveals time-dependent protein corona changes in the intracellular pathway.

The intracellular protein corona has not been fully investigated in the field of nanotechnology-biology (nano-bio) interactions. To effectively understand intracellular protein corona formation and dynamics, we established a workflow to isolate the intracellular protein corona at different uptake times of two nanoparticles - magnetic hydroxyethyl starch nanoparticles (HES-NPs) and magnetic human serum albumin nanocapsules (HSA-NCs). We performed label-free quantitative LC-MS proteomics to analyze the composition of the intracellular protein corona and correlated our findings with results from conventional methods for intracellular trafficking of nanocarriers, such as flow cytometry, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and confocal microscopy (cLSM).