In vitro uptake of lysozyme-loaded liposomes coated with chitosan biopolymer as model immunoadjuvants.

Chitosan binds to negatively charged soy lecithin liposomes by an electrostatic interaction driven by its cationic amino group. This interaction allows developing stable coated vesicles suitable as a targeted carrier and controlled release system for drugs and vaccines. In this work, we studied the effect of chitosan-coated liposomes on the uptake and antigen presentation of hen egg-white lysozyme (HEL) in Peyer's patches peritoneal macrophages isolated from mice. Chitosan-coated liposomes were characterized according to size, zeta potential, and antigen-loading and release properties. Results showed an increase in the positive net charge and size of the liposomes as the concentration of chitosan was increased, suggesting an electrostatic interaction and an effective coating, followed by fluorescence microscopy. About 85% of the antigen loaded remained in the chitosan-coated liposomes after release studies for 4 hours in phosphate-buffered saline. After 4 hours of preincubation with a T-cell hybridoma line cocultured with murine peritoneal macrophages, only trace amounts of interleukin-2 (IL-2) were detected in the cocultures treated with HEL alone, whereas cocultures treated with HEL-liposomes had an important production of IL-2, and the HEL chitosan-coated liposomes had already reached maximum IL-2 expression. Confocal microscopy studies showed that chitosan-coated liposomes had a higher uptake rate of the fluorescently labeled HEL than uncoated liposomal vesicles after 30 minutes of incubation with the peritoneal macrophages. Since uptake by macrophage cells is the first step in vaccination, our results suggest that the chitosan-coated liposomal system is a potential candidate as an immunoadjuvant for vaccine delivery systems.