European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics
NoteNon-invasive pulmonary aerosol delivery in mice by the endotracheal route
Introduction
The pulmonary route for local and systemic drug delivery is constantly being investigated for the purpose of targeting drugs to specific lung cell populations and for non-parenteral systemic delivery of macromolecular drugs. In addition, research exploring the possibility of using the pulmonary route to establish a mucosal as well as systemic immune response against airborne pathogens is on the rise [1], [2], [3].
Animal testing plays a very important role in the assessment of aerosol delivery with respect to efficiency, reproducibility, and safety of drugs and vaccines. Even though pulmonary application in small laboratory animals such as mice is considered complicated and often discouraging, it appears to be mandatory in pulmonary disease models and in vaccination studies [4]. The most common method of pulmonary drug application is the intratracheal instillation. This method has been used for the application of subunit vaccines, cationic lipoplexes and polymeric microspheres into mice lungs [3], [5], [6], [7], [8]. The advantages of intratracheal instillation are direct application of the drug into the lungs accompanied by minimal drug loss in the nose, throat and upper airways, the dose given is quantifiable, the application itself takes a short time and costs are relatively low. Nevertheless, this method results in a poor distribution of the formulation in the lung, mice can tolerate only small volumes, and the most important disadvantage is that it requires invasive surgery. The latter represents a problem when multiple administrations over longer experimental periods of time have to be performed, as is the case in vaccination studies. It is accompanied by pain and discomfort to the animal and requires treatment with analgesics to comply with the guidelines of most national ethical committees. Such analgesic treatment is bound to influence immunologic readout, and therefore, could be problematic in vaccination studies. Another method for aerosol application is the use of inhalation chambers. These chambers are used for whole body or nose only exposure and are designed for restrained, unrestrained or anesthetized animals. The aerosol is generated by a nebuliser connected to the exposure chamber and the animal is exposed for a period of time according to the dose required [9], [10], [11], [12]. This method is non-invasive and results in good peripheral distribution of the agent in the lungs [9]. However, it is difficult to determine the exact dose that reaches the lungs since there is the possibility of drug loss in the chamber, on the animal's skin as well as in the nose and throat. This represents a drawback when investigating dose dependent effects of drugs and vaccines. Furthermore, using a nebuliser requires a lot of time, especially when large groups of animals are used for the study.
The mouse is the animal model of choice for testing vaccines against several diseases such as tuberculosis, mainly because of its well-characterized immune system and the possibility to create strains showing specific immunologic characteristics (e.g. knock-out mice, different HLA-type mice). The methods for pulmonary delivery in mice described in literature (as discussed above) are not optimal for vaccination experiments where multiple administrations of specified doses of the vaccine are needed.
Here we describe in details an improved non-invasive method for pulmonary delivery in mice. It is our intention to share our experience with this technique to guide and to foster work in this particular interesting area of drug and vaccine delivery.
Section snippets
Animals
Female Balb/c and C57BL/6 mice (6–12 weeks old; Charles River, Sulzfeld, Germany) were used for in vivo pulmonary administration. Animal experiments were performed according to the ‘Principles of Laboratory Animal Care’ as defined by NIH and were permitted by the Ethical Committee of Leiden University (Leiden, The Netherlands).
Aerosolisation of solutions and suspensions
Aerosolisation was performed using a MicroSprayer™ aerosoliser (IA-1C; Penn-Century, Philadelphia, PA, USA) suitable for mice, attached to a high-pressure syringe
Aerosol droplet size
Measurements of droplets sizes obtained by spraying from the Penn-century Microsprayer™ were performed by using the time-of-flight principle. Mean mass aerodynamic diameter (MMAD) of the droplets was 8.01±0.57 μm with a geometric standard deviation (GSD) of 1.1.
Method validation
Pulmonary delivery of India ink solution as an aerosol confirmed that the aerosol was applied through the trachea, avoiding drug loss by intragastric application via the esophagus (Fig. 3). India ink was clearly visualized in the airways
Discussion and conclusions
The pulmonary application method described here offers the opportunity of multiple administrations of drugs or vaccines in mice avoiding any surgical procedure. The main challenge of endotracheal application in small animals such as mice is the visualization of the trachea, which is essential for reliable lung administration. Our experimental set-up facilitated tracheal visualization and enabled easy intubation regardless of the applicator used. The experiments using India ink solution verified
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge Kees Geerse from Technical University of Delft for the Aerosizer measurements and Hans de Bont from the Division of Toxicology at LACDR for assisting with the fluorescent microscope.
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