Abstract
Parkinson's disease (PD), one of the most common movement and neurodegenerative disorders, is challenging to treat, partly because the blood-brain barrier blocks passage of most drugs. Levodopa is a common clinical drug for controlling the symptoms of PD, but it only replenishes the missing dopamine, can’t protect dopaminergic neurons. While curcumin as a neuroprotective agent has been reported for treatment of PD. Herein, we present a novel organic-inorganic composite nanoparticle with brain targeting (denoted as lf-protocells) for co-delivery of levodopa and curcumin, and demonstrate its attractive use as a biocompatible platform for PD treatment. The nanoparticle system is comprised of a lactoferrin (lf) modified lipid bilayer (LB) containing curcumin as its outer membrane and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) containing levodopa as its supporting inner core. Our studies illustrate that the lf-protocells have a size of about 180 nm and spherical morphology, and can be used to co-load levodopa and curcumin efficiently. Further, a cell model and a mouse model induced by rotenone (Rot) and MPTP respectively are used to investigate the effects of binary-drug loaded lf-protocells on PD. Our results demonstrate that the combination of curcumin and levodopa alleviate the apoptosis of PD cells, enhance the cell viability as compared to levodopa used alone; levodopa together with curcumin also efficiently decrease the expression of a-synuclein, increase the expression of tyrosine hydroxylase in SH-SY5Y cells, and transform more levodopa into dopamine for supplement the loss of the brain. Moreover, the resulting binary-drug loaded lf-protocells ameliorate oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction as compared to combination of free drugs. In addition, testing in a mouse model indicate that lf-protocells can improve significantly the motor function and distribution in brain compared with unmodified protocells. In conclusion, binary-drug loaded lf-protocells show much better therapeutic efficacy in both the cell model and the mouse model of PD and lower toxicity than bare MSNs. These results suggest that lf-protocells can be used as a promising drug delivery platform for targeted therapy against PD and other diseases of the central nervous system.
Phytochemical andrographolide modulates NF-κB and JNK in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells, a cell model for Parkinson's disease
