Scientists are working on a new nanoparticle treatment for septic shock and uncontrolled inflammation that might help Covid-19 care.
The research, published yesterday (28 April), was carried out by a team at the Galien Institute at Paris-Saclay University, France.
Professor Patrick Couvreur and colleagues report that recent studies on Covid-19 suggest that mortality might be due to hyperinflammation caused by the virus.
In Science Advances yesterday (27 April), they write: “Growing evidence has indicated that uncontrolled pro-inflammatory states are often driven by continuous positive feedback loops between pro-inflammatory signalling and oxidative stress.”
So they looked for effective ways of interrupting this feedback. The team developed and tested ‘multidrug nanoparticles’, which they made by altering the naturally-produced lipid squalene into an endogenous immunomodulator called adenosine.
Next they added the natural antioxidant alpha-tocopherol, resulting in “high drug-loading, biocompatible, multidrug nanoparticles” of between 20 and 300 nanometres.
The team say these nanoparticles are able to deliver the therapeutic drugs in a targeted way and gave “a significant survival advantage” in tests on animals with septic shock.
They conclude: “Selectively delivering adenosine and antioxidants together could serve as a novel approach for the treatment of acute inflammation with reduced-side effects and high therapeutic potential.”
This work could lead to an important new treatment for a range of diseases that cause uncontrolled inflammatory processes, which can be lethal. The team are now planning to carry out further clinical studies on mitigating the inflammatory reactions such as those seen in Covid-19 infection.
Dormont, F. et al. Squalene-based multidrug nanoparticles for improved mitigation of uncontrolled inflammation. Science Advances 27 April 2020; doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz5466
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/27/sciadv.aaz5466.abstract
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