Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may lead to irreversible joint damage, seriously affecting the health of patients. Cell-mediated drug delivery strategies provide a significant promise for improving drug delivery efficiency and enhancing therapeutic efficacy in RA. Herein, a neutrophil-mediated nanoplatform, constructed from celastrol-loaded liposome (LP-Cel) and neutrophils (NEs) on the outer surface capable of inflammation migration ability, namely, NEs-LP-Cel, is developed for RA treatment. By exploiting the inflammatory environment of RA and the inflammatory chemotaxis of neutrophils, LP-Cel is transported to inflamed tissues to release celastrol and display anti-inflammatory effects. Experimental results demonstrate that NEs-LP-Cel can effectively accumulate at the inflammation sites, reduce paw swelling, and decrease the expression of inflammatory factors (TNF-α and IL-1β) in joint tissues of RA rats, indicating enhanced therapeutic effects and negligible side effects, providing a new way for using neutrophil-mediated nanocarriers as delivery nanoplatforms to achieve treatment in inflammatory diseases.
Jiao et al. (Sun,) studied this question.