Inés de Cáceres Renovell, Parasitology, 3rd-year Pharmacy and Biotechnology student.
Lipid nanocapsules (LNCs) have already been proved, as shown in previous studies, to increase the bioavailability and efficacy of drugs with an oral administration, due to the enhancement of the absorption in the intestine and the ability to get to distal targeted sites after that. Bearing this in mind, Praziquantel (PZQ)-LNCs oral nanomedicine could be suggested in order to improve the effectiveness of PZQ mass chemotherapy, on the grounds that the dose of the drug will be lowered and, thus, will result in better tolerability.
In this work, instead of LNCs, silica nanocapsules were used. Explaining the experiment a little more thoroughly, encapsulated Praziquantel in silica nanoparticles (PZQ-Si) was tried as a treatment for Schistosoma mansoni infected murine mice and resulted in an enhancement of the safety and antischistosomal, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities of the Praziquantel treatment.
Positive controls of infected mice were performed, as well as negative controls with mice that were neither infected nor treated with PZQ. Besides, drug control was made by treating Schistosoma mansoni infected mice with the same doses of PZQ administrated via oral.
Mice experimentally infected with S. mansoni were treated 6 weeks after the infection with different doses of PZQ-Si either orally or via intraperitoneal (IP). This last one administration method delivered PZQ-Si with lower efficiency than the oral administration one. In this way, orally treated mice with PZQ-Si showed a maximum antischistosomal effect with a reduction of total worm burden, amount of tissue eggs and hepatic granuloma number and size. In addition, hepatic DNA fragmentation was quantified by comet assay and, in comparison with positive and PZQ control groups, it showed significantly lower levels of DNA fragmentation. It is worth mentioning that the biomarkers related to liver oxidative stress level and immunomodulatory outcome (serum TNF-alfa and IL-10) were substantially improved.
PZQ-Si has demonstrated to possess great physicochemical characteristics, such as spherical shape, small uniform size (105nm) and high PZQ entrapment efficiency (83%). In addition, PZQ loaded in silica nanocarrier allows using a decreased dose of PZQ, which could be translated into an increase of the efficacy of PZQ antischistosomal mass chemotherapy.
In conclusion, PZQ-Si, as well as PZQ-LNCs, due to its demonstrated properties and efficiency, is a good option when it comes to suggesting an enhanced treatment against S. mansoni or, in other words, in a better PZQ antischistosomal mass chemotherapy.
Original news: Tawfeek GM, Baki MHA, Ibrahim AN, Mostafa MAH, Fathy MM, Diab MSEDM. 2019 Oct 31. Enhancement of the therapeutic efficacy of praziquantel in murine Schistosomiasis mansoni using silica nanocarrier. PubMed.
Other sources: Amara RO, Ramadan AA, El-Moslemany RM, Eissa MM, El-Azzouni MZ, El-Khordagui LK. 2018 Aug 6. Praziquantel-lipid nanocapsules: an oral nanotherapeutic with potential Schistosoma mansoni tegumental targeting.
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