Issue 41, 2019

Highly selective microglial uptake of ceria–zirconia nanoparticles for enhanced analgesic treatment of neuropathic pain

Abstract

Neuropathic pain is a chronic and pathological pain caused by injury or dysfunction in the nervous system. Pro-inflammatory microglial activation with aberrant reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in the spinal cord plays a critical role in the development of neuropathic pain. However, the efficacy of current therapeutic methods for neuropathic pain is limited because only neurons or neural circuits involved in pain transmission are targeted. Here, an effective strategy to treat pain hypersensitivity using microglia-targeting ceria–zirconia nanoparticles (CZ NPs) is reported. The CZ NPs are coated with microglia-specific antibodies to promote their delivery to microglia, and thus to improve their therapeutic efficacy. The targeted delivery facilitates the elimination of both pro-inflammatory cytokines and ROS in microglia, enabling the rapid and effective inhibition of microglial activation. As a result, greatly ameliorated mechanical allodynia is achieved in a spinal nerve transection (SNT)-induced neuropathic pain mouse model, proving the potent analgesic effect of the microglia-targeting CZ NPs. Given the generality of the approach used in this study, the microglia-targeting CZ NPs are expected to be useful for the treatment of not only neuropathic pain but also other neurological diseases associated with the vicious activation of microglia.

Graphical abstract: Highly selective microglial uptake of ceria–zirconia nanoparticles for enhanced analgesic treatment of neuropathic pain

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 3 2019
Accepted
28 7 2019
First published
02 9 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Nanoscale, 2019,11, 19437-19447

Highly selective microglial uptake of ceria–zirconia nanoparticles for enhanced analgesic treatment of neuropathic pain

B. Choi, M. Soh, Y. Manandhar, D. Kim, S. I. Han, S. Baik, K. Shin, S. Koo, H. J. Kwon, G. Ko, J. Oh, H. Hwang, T. Hyeon and S. J. Lee, Nanoscale, 2019, 11, 19437 DOI: 10.1039/C9NR02648G

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