Obesity and inflammation influence pharmacokinetic profiles of PEG-based nanoparticles

Most patients that will be treated with soft nanoparticles (NPs) will be obese. Yet, NP testing, which begins with pharmacokinetic (PK) and toxicity studies, is carried out almost exclusively in lean rodents having healthy livers and low inflammation. To address this knowledge gap, we determined the PK and toxicity of tail-vein-injected, PEG-based cylindrical nanoparticles (CNPs) and PEGylated liposomes (PLs) as a function of obesity, liver health, and inflammation in leptin-deficient ob/ob and wild-type C57BL/6 J mice. CNPs localized faster to obese livers than to healthy livers within 24 h of injection. PLs localized faster to obese livers than to healthy livers but only 30 min post-injection. Afterwards PL localization to lean livers was higher than localization to obese livers. Overall, PL liver signal peaked ∼6 h post-injection in lean mice, ∼24 h post-injection in heavy mice, and ∼ 48 h post-injection in obese mice. CNPs and PLs were non-toxic to mouse livers as assessed by histology; they reduced many cytokine and chemokine levels that were elevated by obesity. Liver macrophage depletion reduced CNP and PL liver localization as expected; liver sinusoidal endothelial cell (LSEC) depletion reduced PL liver localization but surprisingly increased CNP liver localization. The intensity of RAW264.7 macrophages was higher after CNP incubations than with PL incubations; conversely, the intensity of LSECs was higher after PL incubations than with CNP incubations. This shows the potential for key differences in NP-liver interactions. Triggering inflammation by administering lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to mice increased CNP liver localization but decreased PL liver localization. The results show that obesity and inflammation in a mouse model and in vitro affect soft PEG-based NP interaction with macrophages and LSECs, but also that these NPs can reduce pro-inflammatory pathways increased by obesity.