Molecular Architecture of Lipid Nanoparticles using SANS

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are composed of a mixture of a cationic ionisable lipid, distearoylphosphatidylcholine (DSPC), cholesterol, and a PEG-lipid. Significantly, LNPs are increasingly being investigated as a means to deliver RNA, partially because of their use as the vehicle used to deliver the mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech [1]. While lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are approved in use for RNA delivery, the speed of their development and subsequent regulatory approval has meant that there has been no time to optimise the properties of the LNPs. To better understand how the LNPs deliver nucleic acid, it is important to determine the detailed molecular architecture of the LNPs to understand the interactions of the lipids comprising the LNPs with their nucleic acid cargo, this will be achieved here using contrast variation SANS.