Intranasal TAT-haFGF Improves Cognition and Amyloid-β Pathology in an AβPP/PS1 Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease

Cell-Penetrating Peptides as Valuable Tools for Nose-to-Brain Delivery of Biological Drugs

Due to their high specificity toward the target and their low toxicity, biological drugs have been successfully employed in a wide range of therapeutic areas. It is yet to be mentioned that biologics exhibit unfavorable pharmacokinetic properties, are susceptible to degradation by endogenous enzymes, and cannot penetrate biological barriers such as the blood-brain barrier (i.e., the major impediment to reaching the central nervous system (CNS)). Attempts to overcome these issues have been made by exploiting the intracerebroventricular and intrathecal routes of administration. The invasiveness and impracticality of these procedures has, however, prompted the development of novel drug delivery strategies including the intranasal route of administration. This represents a non-invasive way to achieve the CNS, reducing systemic exposure. Nonetheless, biotherapeutics strive to penetrate the nasal epithelium, raising the possibility that direct delivery to the nervous system may not be straightforward. To maximize the advantages of the intranasal route, new approaches have been proposed including the use of cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) and CPP-functionalized nanosystems. This review aims at describing the most impactful attempts in using CPPs as carriers for the nose-to-brain delivery of biologics by analyzing their positive and negative aspects.

Intranasal neprilysin rapidly eliminates amyloid-beta plaques, but causes plaque compensations: the explanation why the amyloid-beta cascade may fail?

Neurodegenerative brain disorders are a major burden in our society, such as Alzheimer´s disease. In order to repair or prevent such diseases, drugs are designed which enter the brain, but the blood-brain barrier limits their entry and the search for alternative pathways is important. Recently, we reported that intranasal delivery of the amyloid-beta degrading enzyme neprilysin eliminated amyloid-beta plaques in transgenic Alzheimer´s disease mice. This review describes the anatomical structure of the intranasal pathway, explains the intranasal delivery of pure neprilysin, cell-loaded neprilysin (platelets) and collagen-embedded neprilysin to destruct amyloid-beta plaques in Alzheimer´s disease in transgenic APP_SweDI mice and hypothesizes why this may cause compensation and why the amyloid-beta cascade hypothesis may fail.

Intranasal Delivery of Collagen-Loaded Neprilysin Clears Beta-Amyloid Plaques in a Transgenic Alzheimer Mouse Model

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is pathologically characterized by extracellular beta-amyloid (Aβ) plaques and intraneuronal tau tangles in the brain. A therapeutic strategy aims to prevent or clear these Aβ plaques and the Aβ-degrading enzyme neprilysin is a potent drug to degrade plaques. The major challenge is to deliver bioactive neprilysin into the brain via the blood-brain barrier. The aim of the present study is to explore if intranasal delivery of neprilysin can eliminate plaques in a transgenic AD mouse model (APP_SweDI). We will test if collagen or platelets are useful vehicles to deliver neprilysin into the brain. Using organotypic brain slices from adult transgenic APP_SweDI mice, we show that neprilysin alone or loaded in collagen hydrogels or in platelets cleared cortical plaques. Intransasal delivery of neprilysin alone increased small Aβ depositions in the middle and caudal cortex in transgenic mice. Platelets loaded with neprilysin cleared plaques in the frontal cortex after intranasal application. Intranasal delivery of collagen-loaded neprilysin was very potent to clear plaques especially in the middle and caudal parts of the cortex. Our data support that the Aβ degrading enzyme neprilysin delivered to the mouse brain can clear Aβ plaques and intranasal delivery (especially with collagen as a vehicle) is a fast and easy application. However, it must be considered that intranasal neprilysin may also activate more plaque production in the transgenic mouse brain as a side effect.

Can Blood-Circulating Factors Unveil and Delay Your Biological Aging?

According to the World Health Organization, the population of over 60 will double in the next 30 years in the developed countries, which will enforce a further raise of the retirement age and increase the burden on the healthcare system. Therefore, there is an acute issue of maintaining health and prolonging active working longevity, as well as implementation of early monitoring and prevention of premature aging and age-related disorders to avoid early disability. Traditional indicators of biological age are not always informative and often require extensive and expensive analysis. The study of blood factors is a simple and easily accessible way to assess individual health and supplement the traditional indicators of a person's biological age with new objective criteria. With age, the processes of growth and development, tissue regeneration and repair decline; they are gradually replaced by enhanced catabolism, inflammatory cell activity, and insulin resistance. The number of senescent cells supporting the inflammatory loop rises; cellular clearance by autophagy and mitophagy slows down, resulting in mitochondrial and cellular damage and dysfunction. Monitoring of circulated blood factors not only reflects these processes, but also allows suggesting medical intervention to prevent or decelerate the development of age-related diseases. We review the age-related blood factors discussed in recent publications, as well as approaches to slowing aging for healthy and active longevity.

Tat-haFGF14-154 Upregulates ADAM10 to Attenuate the Alzheimer Phenotype of APP/PS1 Mice through the PI3K-CREB-IRE1α/XBP1 Pathway

Acid fibroblast growth factor (aFGF) has shown neuroprotection in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) models in previous studies, yet its mechanism is still uncertain. Here we report that the efficacy of Tat-haFGF_14–154 is markedly increased when loaded cationic liposomes for intranasal delivery are intranasally administered to APP/PS1 mice. Our results demonstrated that liposomal Tat-haFGF_14–154 treatment significantly ameliorated behavioral deficits, relieved brain Aβ burden, and increased the expression and activity of disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain-containing protein 10 (ADAM10) in the brain. Tat-haFGF_14–154 antagonized Aβ_1–42-induced cell death and structural damage in rat primary neurons in an ADAM10-dependent manner, which, in turn, was promoted by the activation of XBP1 splicing and modulated by the PI3K-CREB pathway. Both knockdown of ADAM10 and inhibition of PI3K (LY294002) negated Tat-haFGF_14–154 rescue. Thus, Tat-haFGF_14–154 activates the IRE1α/XBP1 pathway of the unfolded protein response (UPR) against the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress induced by Aβ, and, subsequently, the nuclear translocation of spliced XBP1 (XBP1s) promotes transcription of ADAM10. These results highlight the important role of ADAM10 and its activation through the PI3K-CREB-IRE1α/XBP1 pathway as a key factor in the mechanism of neuroprotection for Tat-haFGF_14–154.