When Nanoparticles Hitch A Ride With Bile Acids

An international team of scientists has attached bile acids to the surface of nanoparticles to improve the passage of nanoparticles from the gastrointestinal tract into the blood.

AsianScientist (Aug. 22, 2018) – A research group from South Korea, Japan and the US has invented nanoparticles that can be taken orally and are readily absorbed in the intestine. They reported their findings in ACS Nano.

Nanoparticles show great promise as diagnostic tools and drug delivery agents. The tiny particles, which scientists can modify with drugs, dyes or targeting molecules, can travel in the circulation and squeeze through small spaces into cells and tissues. But to date, most nanoparticles had to be injected into the bloodstream because they were not easily absorbed when administered orally.

To overcome this limitation, researchers at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea; Fuji Research Laboratories, Japan; and the University of Utah, US, modified nanoparticles to improve their uptake in the gastrointestinal tract. They developed polystyrene nanoparticles that could ‘hitch a ride’ with bile acids—small molecules that help move digested fats from the intestine into special cells called enterocytes, where fats are processed before entering the circulation.

The researchers attached 24 copies of a bile acid to each 100-nm nanoparticle, as well as a red fluorescent compound for easy visualization. When the team fed the modified nanoparticles to rats, about 47 percent of the particles made it into the blood. This was much improved from the seven percent seen for nanoparticles lacking bile acids. However, larger nanoparticles were not taken up as well as smaller ones.

Corresponding author Professor Bae You Han and coworkers further demonstrated that the bile acids on the nanoparticles interact with a bile acid transporter found on the surface of enterocytes, which might help the nanoparticles move through the cells and into the circulation.


The article can be found at: Kim et al. (2018) Oral Nanoparticles Exhibit Specific High-Efficiency Intestinal Uptake and Lymphatic Transport.

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Source: American Chemical Society; Photo: Shutterstock.
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