Orally Targeted Delivery of Tripeptide KPV via Hyaluronic Acid-Functionalized Nanoparticles Efficiently Alleviates Ulcerative Colitis
Xiao B, Xu Z, Viennois E, et al. (2017). Molecular Therapy.
Summary
A drug-delivery study rather than a study of KPV itself. The authors loaded KPV into hyaluronic-acid-coated polymer nanoparticles designed to be taken up by colonic epithelial cells and macrophages, then encapsulated those particles in a chitosan/alginate hydrogel so they would survive oral delivery and release in the colon. In cell culture the particles were taken up by the target cell types without apparent toxicity; in a mouse colitis model the hydrogel-encapsulated particles reduced mucosal damage and lowered TNF-alpha more than KPV-loaded particles without the hyaluronic acid coating. Mouse and cell work; nothing here bears on oral KPV taken without such a carrier.