Construction of Nicotinamide Mononucleotide-Loaded Liposomes and Their In Vitro Transport Across the Blood–Brain Barrier

Abstract

Nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) possesses a variety of physiological functions and has therapeutic effects on cardio-cerebral diseases, senile degenerative diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, delayed aging, etc. However, its ability to cross the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and the mechanism of its transport have not been reported. In this study, we used the immortalized hCMEC/D3 cell line to construct an in vitro monolayer cell BBB model, evaluated its ability to cross the blood–brain barrier, and explored the mechanism by carrying out transport and efflux experiments on NMN. The ability of NMN to cross the BBB was investigated by preparing NMN-loaded liposomes conjugated with ANG peptide and RVG peptide. The results showed that the transmembrane transport ability of NMN was moderate, and the transport mechanism was passive transport relying on the concentration difference. The trans-BBB ability of ANG peptide coupled with NMN could be highly significantly improved.

Keywords

• in vitro blood–brain barrier
• NMN
• liposome
• <i>P_app</i> value
• transport mechanism