Preparation, characterization, and stability of lipid nanoparticles including unsaturated lipids

Abstract

Abstract Among the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines developed to date, the mRNA vaccines developed by the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna companies have been formulated using saturated lipids, specifically 1,2-distearoyl- sn -glycero-3-phosphocholine (DSPC), along with cholesterol. DSPC and cholesterol have the disadvantage of causing sclerosis. Therefore, in this study, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) were prepared and characterized by replacing DSPC with 1,2-dioleoyl- sn -glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) and excluding cholesterol. The results showed that the DOPC-based LNPs had a smaller diameter (75.67 nm) compared to the previous study and the polydispersity index (PI) indicated a good dispersion homogeneity, suggesting size uniformity. Additionally, the LNPs maintained their size between 57 nm and 152 nm and showed stable PI values (0.330–0.393) throughout the 25 days.