Manufacturing of 3D-Printed Microfluidic Devices for the Synthesis of Drug-Loaded Liposomal Formulations

• Main Authors: Giulia Ballacchino, Edward Weaver, Essyrose Mathew, Rossella Dorati, Ida Genta, Bice Conti, Dimitrios A. Lamprou
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-07-01
• Series: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• Subjects: microfluidics; chip manufacturing; 3D printing; nanoparticles; liposomes; curcumin
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/15/8064
• ISSN: 1661-6596; 1422-0067

Microfluidic technique has emerged as a promising tool for the production of stable and monodispersed nanoparticles (NPs). In particular, this work focuses on liposome production by microfluidics and on factors involved in determining liposome characteristics. Traditional fabrication techniques for microfluidic devices suffer from several disadvantages, such as multistep processing and expensive facilities. Three-dimensional printing (3DP) has been revolutionary for microfluidic device production, boasting facile and low-cost fabrication. In this study, microfluidic devices with innovative micromixing patterns were developed using fused deposition modelling (FDM) and liquid crystal display (LCD) printers. To date, this work is the first to study liposome production using LCD-printed microfluidic devices. The current study deals with 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) liposomes with cholesterol (2:1) prepared using commercial and 3D-printed microfluidic devices. We evaluated the effect of microfluidic parameters, chip manufacturing, material, and channel design on liposomal formulation by analysing the size, PDI, and ζ-potential. Curcumin exhibits potent anticancer activity and it has been reported that curcumin-loaded liposomes formulated by microfluidics show enhanced encapsulation efficiency when compared with other reported systems. In this work, curcumal liposomes were produced using the developed microfluidic devices and particle sizing, ζ-potential, encapsulation efficiency, and in vitro release studies were performed at 37 °C.