Researchers at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute have patented a new way of safely transporting medicine across the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier is a group of cells that line the brain's blood vessels, protecting vital brain structures from foreign substances. The barrier has posed enormous difficulties for researchers who want to deliver therapeutic drugs to the brain to treat tumors, infections and degenerative brain diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
The new method takes advantage of a process called transcytosis, which a cell normally uses to transport necessary molecules, such as cholesterol, into the brain. In early tests, BRNI scientists were able to use the new way to deliver a variety of test substances into the brains of rats with no ill effects.
Researchers are hopeful that this will some day be helpful to patients, according to Daniel Alkon, M.D., scientific director of BRNI.
“This may lead to a powerful new tool that clinicians can use to treat brain diseases,” Dr. Alkon said. “The blood-brain barrier provides effective protection to the brain against circulating toxins, bacteria and other harmful substances. But we need to have an effective means of delivering drugs across the barrier if we are going to offer patients better treatment options.”
The new method patented by BRNI is based primarily of low-density lipoproteins (LDLs), a class of molecules that naturally occur in the blood. To help the LDL particles reach their target, BRNI researchers have coated the particles with a natural protein known as apolipoprotein E, which helps direct the particles to receptors on the blood-brain barrier cells. These receptors then assist the particle, which can contain any drug in its central lipid core, across the barrier into the brain.