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Systemic delivery of microRNA for treatment of brain ischemia

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Abstract

Brain ischemia is the second leading cause of death and the third leading cause of disability in the world. Systemic delivery of microRNA, a class of molecules that regulate the expression of cellular proteins associated with angiogenesis, cell growth, proliferation and differentiation, holds great promise for the treatment of brain ischemia. However, their therapeutic efficacy has been hampered by poor delivery efficiency of microRNA. We report herein a platform technology based on microRNA nanocapsules, which enables their effective delivery to the disease sites in the brain. Exemplified by microRNA-21, intravenous injection of the nanocapsules into a rat model of cerebral ischemia could effectively ameliorate the infarct volume, neurological deficit and histopathological severity.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFA0903801), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 52073015, 51773151, 52003021, and 81671169), Tianjin Municipal Health Bureau (No. 2010KY11), Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (No. 2015M580212), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. ZY2006).

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  1. Chaoyong Liu, Jing Wen, and Dai Li contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, 300052, China

    Chaoyong Liu, Dai Li, Jialin Zhu, Junhu Zhou & Chunsheng Kang

  2. ation in Central Nervous System, Ministry of Education, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Injuries, Variations and Regeneration of Nervous System, Tianjin Neurological Institute, Tianjin, 300052, China

    Chaoyong Liu, Dai Li, Jialin Zhu, Junhu Zhou & Chunsheng Kang

  3. College of Life Science and Technology and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Chaoyong Liu & Meng Qin

  4. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Lina Nih, Duo Xu & Yunfeng Lu

  5. Department of Medicine, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Ji Liu

  6. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Composite and Functional Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Hongzhao Qi, Shanshan Zhang, Donglin Han, Xubo Yuan & Jin Zhao

  7. Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    Jing Wen

  8. Tianjin Research Center of Basic Medical Science, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300070, China

    Yu Ren & Huanhuan Jia

  9. Department of Neurology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Jialing Wu

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  1. Chaoyong Liu
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Correspondence to Ji Liu, Jin Zhao, Chunsheng Kang or Yunfeng Lu.

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Liu, C., Wen, J., Li, D. et al. Systemic delivery of microRNA for treatment of brain ischemia. Nano Res. 14, 3319–3328 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3413-8

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