Graphene-Dendrimer Nanostars for Targeted Macrophage Overexpression of Metalloproteinase 9 and Hepatic Fibrosis Precision Therapy.
Silvia MelgarAureli LuqueroMarina Parra-RobertAdriana MoraJordi RiberaElazer R EdelmanWladimiro JiménezPublished in: Nano letters (2018)
Fibrosis contributes to ∼45% of all deaths in industrialized nations, but no direct antifibrotic therapeutic interventions exist to date. Graphene-based nanomaterials exhibit excellent versatility in electronics, and emerging trends exploit their properties for biomedical applications, especially for drug and gene delivery. We designed constructs of graphene nanostars linked to PAMAM-G5 dendrimer for the selective targeting and delivery of a plasmid expressing the collagenase metalloproteinase 9 under the CD11b promoter into inflammatory macrophages in cirrhotic livers. Graphene nanostars preferentially accumulated in inflammatory macrophages M1 in less than 3 h in a manner unaffected by covalent linkage to dendrimers. Dendrimer-graphene nanostars efficiently delivered the plasmid encoding for metalloproteinase 9 into macrophages, allowing the synthesis and secretion of the metalloproteinase to digest adjacent collagen fibers. In turn, metalloproteinase 9 overexpression promoted the macrophage switch from inflammatory M1 to pro-regenerative M2 in 3 days. This targeted gene therapy reduced selectively and locally the presence of collagen fibers in fibrotic tracts where inflammatory macrophages accumulated in cirrhotic mice without affecting the activation state of hepatic stellate cells. Overall, this treatment significantly reduced hepatic injury and improved liver restoration in mice with liver cirrhosis treated for 10 days. Graphene-dendrimer nanostars targeted the macrophage overexpression of metalloproteinase 9, selectively reducing hepatic fibrosis, and might be a good treatment for diseases associated with fibrosis and inflammatory macrophage accumulation.
Keyphrases
- oxidative stress
- room temperature
- adipose tissue
- cancer therapy
- carbon nanotubes
- walled carbon nanotubes
- gene therapy
- escherichia coli
- transcription factor
- cell proliferation
- stem cells
- induced apoptosis
- mesenchymal stem cells
- crispr cas
- gene expression
- type diabetes
- emergency department
- hiv infected
- cell therapy
- systemic sclerosis
- drug delivery
- tissue engineering
- sensitive detection
- combination therapy
- idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
- liver fibrosis
- signaling pathway
- single molecule
- cell cycle arrest
- newly diagnosed
- hepatitis c virus
- genome wide
- skeletal muscle
- ionic liquid
- pulmonary fibrosis