Structural study of lipid bicontinuous cubic phases for cellular delivery
type: CreativeWork
description: Lipid bicontinuous cubic phase is fundamentally interesting phase. Initially it is considered as an intermediate structure between lamellar and hexagonal phases due to its small phase space and complicated structure. With the development of structure characterization technologies, especially X-ray diffraction, it is found that this intermediate structure has cubic symmetry, and can be categorized into several different space groups including Diamond (Pn3m), Primitive (Im3m), and Gyroid (Ia3d). The lipid bicontinuous cubic phases thus have three-dimensional symmetry, high surface area per volume, and highly ordered pore and membrane network. As the building block of the cubic phases is lipid bilayer, it is also possible to incorporate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic molecules of interest in the bulk cubic phase system. The structural characteristics of bicontinuous cubic phases have been utilized for protein crystallization and sensing applications. Lipid bicontinuous cubic phases also have a fusogenic property due to its resemblance of the fused structure. A simple argument by Helfrich on membrane elasticity and thermodynamics can rationalize that the lowered free energy cost of fused bilayer structure formation is the source of the fusogenic property. Lipids have been used as a cellular delivery material for more than decades due to its nontoxicity and resemblance of vesicle transport systems in the cell, such as exosome. Primary formulation of lipid based delivery system is vesicle, called liposome. By modulating lipid composition in the liposome formulation, drug release kinetics can be optimized. There are few drug delivery systems based on liposome which already have obtained FDA approval and commercialized. However, its low efficiency compared to virus based delivery system still limits their cellular delivery potential. Membrane charge density is another important parameter that affect cellular delivery efficiency. In general, positively charged liposomes ha…
abstract: Lipid bicontinuous cubic phase is fundamentally interesting phase. Initially it is considered as an intermediate structure between lamellar and hexagonal phases due to its small phase space and complicated structure. With the development of structure characterization technologies, especially X-ray diffraction, it is found that this intermediate structure has cubic symmetry, and can be categorized into several different space groups including Diamond (Pn3m), Primitive (Im3m), and Gyroid (Ia3d). The lipid bicontinuous cubic phases thus have three-dimensional symmetry, high surface area per volume, and highly ordered pore and membrane network. As the building block of the cubic phases is lipid bilayer, it is also possible to incorporate both hydrophilic and hydrophobic molecules of interest in the bulk cubic phase system. The structural characteristics of bicontinuous cubic phases have been utilized for protein crystallization and sensing applications. Lipid bicontinuous cubic phases also have a fusogenic property due to its resemblance of the fused structure. A simple argument by Helfrich on membrane elasticity and thermodynamics can rationalize that the lowered free energy cost of fused bilayer structure formation is the source of the fusogenic property. Lipids have been used as a cellular delivery material for more than decades due to its nontoxicity and resemblance of vesicle transport systems in the cell, such as exosome. Primary formulation of lipid based delivery system is vesicle, called liposome. By modulating lipid composition in the liposome formulation, drug release kinetics can be optimized. There are few drug delivery systems based on liposome which already have obtained FDA approval and commercialized. However, its low efficiency compared to virus based delivery system still limits their cellular delivery potential. Membrane charge density is another important parameter that affect cellular delivery efficiency. In general, positively charged liposomes ha…
author: Kim, Hojun
language: en
keywords: Lipids, Bicontinuous cubic, Self-assembly, Drug delivery, siRNA delivery, Single crystal, Molecular single crystals
date published: 2018-03-13T17:29:08Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:37Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99470