A Calixarene Assembly Strategy of Combined Anti-Neuroinflammation and Drug Delivery Functions for Traumatic Brain Injury Therapy
Chunxiao Wang,
Yu-Xuan Chang,
Xi Chen,
Lihuan Bai,
Heping Wang,
Yu-Chen Pan,
Chunqiu Zhang,
Dong-Sheng Guo,
Xue Xue
Affiliations
Chunxiao Wang
Laboratory of Theranostical Nanomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 38 Tongyan Road, Tianjin 300353, China
Yu-Xuan Chang
Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials (Ministry of Education), State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, 94 Weijin Poad, Tianjin 300071, China
Xi Chen
Laboratory of Theranostical Nanomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 38 Tongyan Road, Tianjin 300353, China
Lihuan Bai
Laboratory of Theranostical Nanomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 38 Tongyan Road, Tianjin 300353, China
Heping Wang
Laboratory of Theranostical Nanomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 38 Tongyan Road, Tianjin 300353, China
Yu-Chen Pan
Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials (Ministry of Education), State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, 94 Weijin Poad, Tianjin 300071, China
Chunqiu Zhang
Laboratory of Theranostical Nanomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 38 Tongyan Road, Tianjin 300353, China
Dong-Sheng Guo
Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials (Ministry of Education), State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, 94 Weijin Poad, Tianjin 300071, China
Xue Xue
Laboratory of Theranostical Nanomedicine, State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Haihe Education Park, 38 Tongyan Road, Tianjin 300353, China
Excessive inflammatory reaction aggravates brain injury and hinders the recovery of neural function in nervous system diseases. Microglia, as the major players of neuroinflammation, control the progress of the disease. There is an urgent need for effective non-invasive therapy to treat neuroinflammation mediated by microglia. However, the lack of specificity of anti-inflammatory agents and insufficient drug dose penetrating into the brain lesion area are the main problems. Here, we evaluated a series of calixarenes and found that among them the self-assembling architecture of amphiphilic sulfonatocalix[8]arene (SC8A12C) had the most potent ability to suppress neuroinflammation in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, SC8A12C assemblies were internalized into microglia through macropinocytosis. In addition, after applying the SC8A12C assemblies to the exposed brain tissue, we observed that SC8A12C assemblies penetrated into the brain parenchyma and eliminated the inflammatory factor storm, thereby restoring neurobiological functions in a mouse model of traumatic brain injury.