Selective ischemic-hemisphere targeting Ginkgolide B liposomes with improved solubility and therapeutic efficacy for cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury

Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion injury(CI/RI)remains the main cause of disability and death in stroke patients due to lack of effective therapeutic strategies.One of the main issues related to CI/RI treatment is the presence of the blood-brain barrier(BBB),which affects the intracerebral delivery of drugs.Ginkgolide B(GB),a major bioactive component in commercially available products of Ginkgo biloba,has been shown significance in CI/RI treatment by regulating inflammatory pathways,oxidative damage,and metabolic disturbance,and seems to be a candidate for stroke recovery.However,limited by its poor hydrophilicity and lipophilicity,the development of GB preparations with good solubility,stability,and the ability to cross the BBB remains a challenge.Herein,we propose a combinatorial strategy by conjugating GB with highly lipophilic docosahexaenoic acid(DHA)to obtain a covalent complex GB-DHA,which can not only enhance the pharmacological effect of GB,but can also be encapsulated in liposomes stably.The amount of finally constructed Lipo@GB-DHA targeting to ischemic hemisphere was validated 2.2 times that of free solution in middle cerebral artery occlusion(MCAO)rats.Compared to the marketed ginkgolide injection,Lipo@GB-DHA significantly reduced infarct volume with better neurobehavioral recovery in MCAO rats after being intravenously administered both at 2 h and 6 h post-reperfusion.Low levels of reactive oxygen species(ROS)and high neuron survival in vitro was maintained via Lipo@GB-DHA treatment,while microglia in the ischemic brain were polarized from the pro-inflammatory M1 phenotype to the tissue-repairing M2 phenotype,which modulate neuroinflammatory and angiogenesis.In addition,Lipo@GB-DHA inhibited neuronal apoptosis via regulating the apoptotic pathway and maintained homeostasis by activating the autophagy pathway.Thus,transforming GB into a lipophilic complex and loading it into liposomes provides a promising nanomedicine strategy with excellent CI/RI therapeutic efficacy and industrialization prospects.

Menthol-modified casein nanoparticles loading 10-hydroxycamptothecin for glioma targeting therapy

Chemotherapy outcomes for the treatment of glioma remains unsatisfactory due to the inefficient drug transport across the blood–brain barrier(BBB) and insufficient drug accumulation in the tumor region. Although many approaches, including various nanosystems, have been developed to promote the distribution of chemotherapeutics in the brain tumor, the delivery efficiency and the possible damage to the normal brain function still greatly restrict the clinical application of the nanocarriers.Therefore, it is urgent and necessary to discover more safe and effective BBB penetration and gliomatargeting strategies. In the present study, menthol, one of the strongest BBB penetration enhancers screened from traditional Chinese medicine, was conjugated to casein, a natural food protein with brain targeting capability. Then the conjugate self-assembled into the nanoparticles to load anti-cancer drugs.The nanoparticles were characterized to have appropriate size, spheroid shape and high loading drug capacity. Tumor spheroid penetration experiments demonstrated that penetration ability of mentholmodified casein nanoparticles(M-CA-NP) into the tumor were much deeper than that of unmodified nanoparticles. In vivo imaging further verified that M-CA-NPs exhibited higher brain tumor distribution than unmodified nanoparticles. The median survival time of glioma-bearing mice treated with HCPT-MCA-NPs was significantly prolonged than those treated with free HCPT or HCPT-CA-NPs. HE staining ofthe organs indicated the safety of the nanoparticles. Therefore, the study combined the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine strategy with modern delivery technology for brain targeting, and provide a safe and effective approach for glioma therapy.

A novel tumor-targeting treatment strategy uses energy restriction via co-delivery of albendazole and nanosilver

Although nanotechnology has been rapidly developed and applied in tumor targeting, the outcome of chemotherapy remains greatly restricted by the toxicity of cytotoxic drugs in normal tissues and cells. Therefore, the development of alternative delivery systems, with few side effects in normal cells, has attracted increasing attention. Energy restriction is a novel and promising approach to cancer treatment, which can restrict tumor growth via inhibition of cellular energy metabolism. In this study, a novel tumor targeting system, based on folate-conjugated bovine serum albumin （BSA）, was developed to co-deliver albendazole and nanosilver simultaneously, to restrain the energy metabolism of tumor cells. This nanosystem showed stronger anti-tumor efficacy than those using nanoparticles without folic acid modification, nanosilver, or albendazole, both in vitro and in vivo. This nanosystem depleted cellular ATP via direct inhibition of glycolytic enzymes and mitochondrial damage, resulting in inhibition of proliferation, cell-cycle arrest, and apoptosis of tumor cells. The enhanced anti-tumor activity contributed to the tumor-targeting ability of this system, resulting in specific energy inhibition in tumor cells. Toxicity evaluation was performed to confirm the safety of this system. This nanosystem provides an efficient and safe strate~ for tumor therapy.