International Journal of Nanomedicine (Dec 2017)
Development of surface-engineered PLGA nanoparticulate-delivery system of Tet-1-conjugated nattokinase enzyme for inhibition of Aβ40 plaques in Alzheimer’s disease
Abstract
Prakash Chandra Bhatt,1 Amita Verma,2 Fahad A Al-Abbasi,3 Firoz Anwar,3 Vikas Kumar,4 Bibhu Prasad Panda1 1Microbial and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Laboratory, Centre for Advanced Research in Pharmaceutical Science, Faculty of Pharmacy, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi, India; 2Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India; 3Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; 4Natural Product Drug Discovery Laboratory, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India Abstract: According to the World Health Organization, globally there are around 18 million patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and this number is expected to double by 2025. The pathophysiology of AD includes selective deposition of Aβ peptide in the mitochondria of cells, which inhibits uptake of glucose by neurons and key enzyme functions. Current drug treatments for AD are unable to rectify the underlying pathology of the disease; they only provide short-term symptomatic relief, so there is a need for the development of newer treatment regimes. The antiamyloid activity, antifibrinolytic activity, and antithrombotic activity of nattokinase holds potential for the treatment of AD. As nattokinase is a protein, its stability restricts its usage to a greater extent, but this limitation can be overcome by nanoencapsulation. In this work, we successfully synthesized polymeric nanoparticles of nattokinase and characterized its use by different techniques: transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, DTS Nano, differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, thioflavin T-binding assay, in vitro drug release, antifibrinolytic activity, and in vivo antiamyloid activity. As brain targeting of hydrophilic drugs is complicated due to the stringent nature of blood–brain barrier, in the current experimental study, we conjugated poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA)-encapsulated nattokinase with Tet1 peptide, which exhibits retrograde transportation properties because of its affinity to neurons. Our study suggests that PLGA-encapsulated nattokinase polymeric nanoparticles are able to downregulate amyloid aggregation and exhibit antifibrinolytic activity. The encapsulation of nattokinase in PLGA did not affect its enzyme activity, so the prepared nanoformulation containing nattokinase can be used as an effective drug treatment against AD. Keywords: nattokinase, PLGA, Aβ40, Alzheimer’s disease, surface modification, TEM, Tet1 peptide
