Multicompartmental Mucoadhesive Nanoparticles to Manage Xerostomia and Hyposalivation-Induced Cavities

Current management of xerostomia symptoms and consequences has been insufficient to address the frustration of patients, caregivers, and health professionals. Xerostomia (dry mouth) is a complication of many systemic conditions and medications that negatively impact salivary glands to provide essential salivary components. The deficiency of salivary components leads to an increased rate of cavities development, thus diminishing the quality of everyday life. While commercially available treatments (i.e. gels/sprays/rinses) offer symptom relief, direct address to salivary glands protection or regeneration has been lacking. This prompted our interest in developing new therapeutics that can help address these challenges. This work showed that multicompartmental mucoadhesive nanoparticles (MMNP) with increased mucoadhesion can be fabricated to supply therapeutics and bridge the gap until permanent solutions to protect or regenerate salivary glands become available and easily accessible.
Multicompartmental mucoadhesive nanoparticles, owing to the anisotropic phases within a single particulate, have the potential to provide orthogonal functionalities and delivery of different therapeutics. Herein, we showed that Electrohydrodynamic Co-jetting can fabricate multicompartment nanoparticles to deliver 1.) mucin to counter hyposalivation and 2.) remineralization salt to inhibit cavity progression. Characterization techniques, i.e., scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and structure illumination microscopy (SIM), were used to obtain quantitative and qualitative analyses to show and corroborate distinct compartments of the jetted 200 nm nanoparticles. Dynamic/electrophoretic light scattering (DLS/ELS) shows a neutral zeta potential of the MMNP with good stability in buffer solution. Release studies of MMNP in different buffer solutions show that the nanoparticles are pH-responsive and can be exploited to manage pre-periodontal disease. Surface plasmon resonance and in vitro assay further validated increased mucoadhesion on mucosa. In summary, our studies confirm the capability to engineer multicompartment nanoparticles that can be tailored for the multi-delivery of therapeutics.
We envision that this proof-of-concept design can be leveraged to modulate therapeutic relief with improved mucoadhesion to withstand the challenging barrier of the oral environment.