Nose-to-brain delivery of macromolecules mediated by cell-penetrating peptides

Abstract

Brain delivery of macromolecular therapeutics (e.g., proteins) remains an unsolved problem because of the formidable blood brain bather (BBB). Although a direct pathway of nose-to-brain transfer provides an answer to circumventing the BBB and has already been intensively investigated for brain delivery of small drugs, new challenges arise for intranasal delivery of proteins because of their larger size and hydrophilicity. h order to overcome the bathers and take advantage of available pathways (e.g., epithelial tight junctions, uptake by olfactory neurons, transport into brain tissues, and intra-brain diffusion), a low molecular weight protamine (LMWP) cell-penetrating peptide was utilized to facilitate nose-to-brain transport. Cell-penetrating peptides (CPP) have been widely used to mediate macromolecular delivery through many kinds of biobarriers. Our results show that conjugates of LMWP proteinsare able to effectively penetrate into the brain after intranasal administration. The CPP-based intranasal method highlights a promising solution for protein therapy of brain diseases. (C) 2016 Chinese Pharmaceutical Association and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.