TRANSDERMAL IMMUNIZATION WITH AN INTEGRAL MEMBRANE COMPONENT, GAP JUNCTION PROTEIN, BY MEANS OF ULTRADEFORMABLE DRUG CARRIERS, TRANSFERSOMES

Molecules gr eater than 500 Da normally no not cross the skin, This pr events epicutaneous delivery of the high molecular weight therapeutics as well as non-invasive transcutaneous immunisation. Extremely deform able vesicles prepared by the judicious combination of several materia ls provide a solution to this problem: the resulting agent carriers, t ransfersomes, are the only tested colloidal system that can transport even large macromolecules spontaneously through the skirt in immunolog ically active form. cap junction proteins (GJP) incorporated into tran sfersomes and applied to the intact skirt surface thus give rise to sp ecific antibody titres marginally higher than those elicited bq) subcu taneous injections of GJP in transfersomes, mixed lipid micelles or li posomes, The latter two carrier systems give no significant biological response after epicutaneous administration, Transcutaneous protein de livery by means of transfersomes also appears to increase the relative concentration of anti-CJP IgA in tile serum. (C) 1997 Published by El sevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.