Recently, ACS Nano (IF=18.027) and Journal of Controlled Release (IF=11.467), the top journals in the field of nanotechnology and drug delivery, published the latest achievements on fibrosis therapy, which researched by Professor Hu-Lin Jiang’s group from the School of Pharmacy at China Pharmaceutical University.
Fibrosis is characterized by the abnormal wound-healing response that induces excessive extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition and primarily accounts for multiple organ dysfunctions. The uncontrolled proliferation of fibrous connective tissue would lead to the deficiency of parenchymal cells, and this continuous progression may lead to the dysfunction of major organs, which seriously pose threat to human health and life.
During liver fibrosis, the fenestrae in the liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) would gradually vanish, hindering the exchange of substance and nano-carriers between blood and liver cells. Furthermore, the excessive ECM is likely to block the delivery of the nano-carriers to activated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) as well. Herein, an efficient nano-drug delivery system was constructed to sequentially break through the capillarized LSEC barrier and the deposited ECM barrier. HA-NPs/SMV were designed to recover the loss of the fenestrae and CV-NPs/siCol1α1 were designed to decompose the deposited collagen and inhibit HSC activation. The study was published in ACS Nano entitled Sequential Nano-Penetrators of Capillarized Liver Sinusoids and Extracellular Matrix Barriers for Liver Fibrosis Therapy. Master's degree candidate Ling-Feng Zhang and Xing-Huan Wang and Master's degree holder Cheng-Lu Zhang are the co-first authors of this paper. China Pharmaceutical University is the first corresponding address.
(Full text links: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.2c03858)
Figure 1. Schematic illustration of dual penetrators for liver fibrosis therapy.
In view of the characteristics of excessive deposition of pathological collagen under pulmonary fibrosis condition, a collagen targeting and penetrating nano-platform was constructed to deliver drugs in injured sites and reverse fibrosis. Collagen targeting peptide was used to target pathological collagen in the lungs, and collagenase was added to degrade collagen, so that drugs could reach the deep of alveoli to treat pulmonary fibrosis. The study was published in Journal of Controlled Release and was featured as Outside Front Cover. And the title of the study is Pathological collagen targeting and penetrating liposomes for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis therapy. Master's degree candidate Ming-Yuan Yang and Master's degree holder Yi-Jun Lin are the co-first authors of this paper. China Pharmaceutical University is the only corresponding address.
(Full text links: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2022.09.054)
Figure 2. Schematic illustration of collagen targeting and penetrating treatment
for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
At present, one of the research scopes of Professor Hu-Lin Jiang's group is to develop multi-level and all-round anti-fibrotic strategies to achieve safe and efficient treatments for fibrosis in multiple organs such as lung, liver and pancreas. So far, the team has applied for six related invention patents, and one of them has been successfully transferred to the company. The team will further consider the strategic concept of research-development-transformation. And the team is always looking forward to having cooperation with more partners to reach the final goal which is to establish a safe and efficient platform to reverse multi-organ fibrosis.
The above work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFE0198400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82020108029, 82073398) and the State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines (China Pharmaceutical University).
