Nanoparticles are used in gastroenterology to better convey drugs and increase the amount of active substance in the digestive tract

Intestinal Bowel Diseases (IBD) are chronic and life-threatening pathologies with intestinal wall lesions which is mainly composed by epithelial cells. To struggle with inflammation or to eliminate its causes, several strategies are considered, namely the use of anti-inflammatory drugs or the development of new therapeutic vaccines. However, due to the limit of the current treatments, it is necessary to develop new strategies.
Especially, nanomedicine is becoming a privileged tool in today and future’s medicine. These objects with a size smaller than 100 nanometers transport a drug to a specific target in the body and increase its efficacy while lowering their toxicity. The present study described a maltodextrin-based (a starch derivative) nanoparticle able to transport and deliver proteins in mucosa cells.
These nanoparticles are safe, bioavailable and bio-eliminable. They can be loaded with various drugs such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-cancer or proteins (antigens) to generate vaccines safer and more efficient than the current ones, the proof-of-concept having been made previously on an oral parasitic infection model.
After nasal (or oral) administration, these nanoparticles enter the mucosa cells, deliver their payload and are expelled to be then eliminated by the digestive tract. With these nanoparticles, the drugs remains longer in the mucosa cells thus strengthened their efficacy. The study of the mechanisms of the cellular drug delivery by these maltodextrin-based nanoparticles is of particular concern to improve treatments against IBD.

 

Références

Bernocchi & al., Protein delivery in nasal mucosa using NPL nanoparticles, J. Controlled Release 2016