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Abstract
The biodistribution of orally and intravenously administered archaeosomes in mice was compared to that of archaeosomes containing either coenzyme Q10 (archaeosome-CoQ10), polyethylene glycol (archaeosome-PEG), or PEG plus CoQ10 (archaeosome-PEG-CoQ10). The archaeosome formulations were prepared by a reverse-phase evaporation method using the total polar lipids from the archaeobacterium Methanosurcina mazei. In the case of oral gavage, the most striking observation was that a significantly (p < 0.05) higher concentration (42.28 ± 4.17%) of administered dose was found in the stomach content 3 h after administration of unmodified archaeosomes, as compared to that of archaeosome-CoQ10 (16.98 ± 2.48%) and archaeosome-PEG-CoQ10 (5.8 ± 4.05%) vesicles. This correlated with an increased uptake, notably of the archaeosome-PEG-CoQ10 vesicles, into liver and spleen; however, no more than 7% of the administered dose was found in liver, spleen and blood at any time point studied. In the case of intravenous administration, a significantly higher percentage of injected dose of unmodified archaeosomes was found in the liver (66.4 ± 4.92%) and spleen (11.44 ± 0.68%) at 48 h, compared to archaeosome-CoQ10, archaeosome-PEG, and archaeosome-PEG-CoQ10 vesicles. The combination of PEG and CoQ10 significantly prolonged the circulation of archaeosomes in the blood, but after 48 h the amount of the vesicle marker in blood had declined to only about 0.5% of administered dose. These data indicate that the biodistribution of archaeosome formulations given orally or intravenously can be altered significantly by incorporating PEG or CoQ10, alone or in combination, and these vesicles have the potential to act as a carrier for therapeutics and vaccines.