On June 5, 2018, a research team, led by Xin Hongliang, Associate Professor of the School of Pharmacy, published a paper entitled “Bioengineered Boronic Ester Modified Dextran Polymer Nanoparticles as Reactive Oxygen Species Responsive Nanocarrier for Ischemic Stroke Treatment”in ACS Nano, a monthly, peer-reviewed journal in nanoscience and nanotechnology with a current impact factor of 13.709. Master students Lv Wei and Xu Jianpei are co-first authors of the paper.

        Ischemic stroke is one of the major causes of long-term disability and fatality globally. It is a heated research field of neuroscience. As Xin’s paper states, “Current drug delivery vehicles for the treatment of ischemic stroke are less than satisfactory, in large part due to their short circulation lives, lack of specific targeting to the ischemic site, and poor controllability of drug release”. Xin’s team developed a bioengineered nanocarrier that responds to reactive oxygen species so as to ensure stroke-specific delivery. A dextran polymer core is modified with ROS-responsive boronic ester and coated with red blood cell membrane embedded with stroke homing peptide (SHp). As Xin has reported, “These targeted “core−shell” nanoparticles (designated as SHp-RBC-NP) could thus have controlled release of NR2B9C triggered by high intracellular ROS in ischemic neurons after homing to ischemic brain tissues. The potential of the SHp-RBC-NP for ischemic stroke therapy was systematically evaluated in vitro and in rat models of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO)”. The research offers a novel strategy for smart drug delivery vehicles for ischemic stroke treatment.

Reported by: School of Pharmacy

Translated by: Wei Miao

Edited: Zhang Donghui