Archaeosomes: an excellent carrier for drug and cell delivery

Figures & data

Table 1. Differences between archaeosomes and liposomes.

Type	Archaeosomes	Liposomes
Definition	Archaeosomes (derived from combination of the words archaea and liposomes) as liposomes made with one or more of the ether lipids that are unique to the domain of Archaeobacteria	Structurally, liposomes are concentric bilayered vesicles, in which an aqueous volume is entirely enclosed by a membranous lipid bilayer mainly composed of natural or synthetic phospholipids
Source	Archaea	Phospholipids
Structure	Archaeal type lipids consist of archaeol (diether) and/or caldarchaeol (tetraether) core structures wherein regularly branched and usually fully saturated phytanyl chains (20–40 carbons in lengths), are attached via ether bonds to the sn-2,3 carbons of the glycerol backbone	Liposomes made from ester phospholipids, wherein regularly branched and usually fully saturated phytanyl chains (20–40 carbons in lengths), are attached via ether bonds to the sn-2,3 carbons of the glycerol backbone
Size	20–1000 nm	20–1000 nm
pH	Remain stable at acidic pH	Does not stable at acidic pH
Temperature	Stable at high temp.	Does not stable at high temp.
Pressure	Stable at high pressure	Does not stable at high pressure
Route of administration	Oral	Oral, i.v., i.m.
Stability	More stability toward oxidative degradation	Less stability toward oxidative degradation
Phospholipid requirement	Does not require addition of cholesterol	Requires addition of cholesterol
Sterilization	Sterilize by autoclaving	Primary sterility is required, does not sterilize by autoclaving
Phagocytic cells uptake	Uptake of archaeosomes by phagocytic cells can be up to 50-fold greater than that of conventional liposome	Less uptake of liposomes by phagocytic cells

Figure 1. Basic structure of archaeosomes.

Figure 2. Structures of archaeal lipid extracted from various species.

Figure 3. Aminated tetraethers derived from T. acidophilum polar lipids.

Figure 4. Hemi synthetic diether and tetraether glycolipids derived from halophilic and thermo-acidophilic polar lipid extracts.

Figure 5. Synthetic archaeal lipid analogs comprising a cyclopentane ring.

Figure 6. Synthetic archaeal lipid analogs.

Table 2. Applications of archaeosomes based formulations.

Drugs	Uses	Mechanism of action	Inferences	References
Paclitaxel	Brest cancer	Enhance polymerization of tubulin	Reduce side effects and improve its therapeutic index	Alavi et al. (2014)
BMD	Anti-inflammatory	Absorption to the deeper layers	Achieving a major drug penetration and accumulation in the skin strata, especially in the epidermis	González-Paredes et al. (2010)
Phenol (recovered from  olive mill waste)	Natural antioxidant compounds	Kill all the micro-organisms	Show a high stability with no change in the initial characteristics of the suspensions, sustained release, long-lasting effect	González-Paredes et al. (2011)
OVA	Cancer treatment	Stimulated proliferation of CD8^+ T cells	Modulate primary, long-term and/or innate immunity, impacting adjuvant choice for vaccine design	Krishnan & Dennis Sprott (2003)
Insulin	Diabetes treatment	Reducing the blood glucose levels	Stable in simulated GI tract conditions, poor permeability of intestinal epithelium	Li et al. (2010)
Plasmid DNA	Lungs therapy	Gene transfection	Directed gene therapy for cystic fibrosis	Réthoré et al. (2007)

Alavi SE, Mansouri H, Esfahani MKM, et al. (2014). Archaeosome: as new drug carrier for delivery of paclitaxel to breast cancer. Indian J Clin Biochem 29:150–3

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González-Paredes A, Manconi M, Caddeo C, et al. (2010). Archaeosomes as carriers for topical delivery of betamethasone dipropionate: in vitro skin permeation study. J Liposome Res 20:269–76

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González-Paredes A, Clarés-naveros B, Ruiz-martínez M, et al. (2011). Delivery systems for natural antioxidant compounds: archaeosomes and archaeosomal hydrogels characterization and release study. Int J Pharm 421:321–31

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Krishnan L, Sad S, Patel GB, Sprott GD. (2003). Archaeosomes induce enhanced cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses to entrapped soluble protein in the absence of interleukin 12 and protect against tumor challenge. Cancer Res 63:2526–34

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Li Z, Chen J, Sun W, Xu Y. (2010). Investigation of archaeosomes as carriers for oral delivery of peptides. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 394:412–17

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Réthoré G, Montier T, Le Gall T, et al. (2007). Archaeosomes based on synthetic tetraether-like lipids as novel versatile gene delivery systems. Chem Commun 20:2054–6

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