Single‐Particle Analysis Reveals Heterogeneity in Membrane Coating

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Authors: Ting He, Wenhua Zheng, Lina Zhu, Xiaoyan Fang, Chunjie Miao, Xinyang Shi, Lemei Zhao, Shuai Jiang
Cited by: 1
References: 69

Abstract

Coating nanoparticles with cell membranes has emerged as a powerful strategy for developing biomimetic nanocarriers that replicate essential cellular features such as immune evasion, prolonged circulation, and site-selective distribution. Despite substantial efforts to optimize ligand presentation on cell membranes, achieving efficient, uniform, and scalable membrane coating remains challenging. Moreover, precise quantification of coating degree, particularly at the single-particle level to reveal inter-particle heterogeneity, has been lacking. Here, we establish Single-Particle Analysis of CEll MembrANe (SPACEMAN), a quantitative platform that enables accurate evaluation of coating integrity and heterogeneity with single-nanoparticle resolution. Using SPACEMAN, we demonstrate that a nano-vesiculation strategy based on ultrasonication achieves a significantly higher overall coating rate (82.2% of particles) compared with extrusion (68.0%) and sonication (61.0%), and yields a greater proportion of particles with high surface coverage (50%-75% and 75%-100% of surface area). Nanoparticles coated via this method exhibited superior immune evasion and prolonged circulation in both in vitro and in vivo models. Indeed, SPACEMAN offers a generalizable single-particle analytical framework for quantitatively probing heterogeneity in physicochemical properties, drug loading, and surface modifications of nanoparticle formulations.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Nanoparticle-Based Drug Delivery Advanced Drug Delivery Systems Inhalation and Respiratory Drug Delivery

Publication details

Journal / source
Small Methods
Publisher
Wiley
Volume
10
Issue
5
Pages
e02352–e02352
Publication date
27 February 2026
Language
EN