Heart valves cross-linked with erythrocyte membrane drug-loaded nanoparticles demonstrated ultrastrong resistance to calcification after 120 days of implantation in rats compared to GLU-treated BHVs.
Do biological heart valves cross-linked with erythrocyte membrane biomimetic drug-loaded nanoparticles improve anti-coagulation, anti-inflammation, anti-calcification, and endothelialization compared to GLU-treated valves in preclinical models?
Cross-linking biological heart valves with erythrocyte membrane biomimetic drug-loaded nanoparticles improves biocompatibility and reduces calcification in preclinical models, offering a potential novel design for bioprosthetic valves.
In recent years, valvular heart disease has become a serious disease threatening human life and is a major cause of death worldwide. However, the glutaraldehyde (GLU)-treated biological heart valves (BHVs) fail to meet all requirements of clinical application due to disadvantages such as valve thrombus, cytotoxicity, endothelialization difficulty, immune response, and calcification. Encouragingly, there are a large number of carboxyls as well as a few amino groups on the surface of GLU-treated BHVs that can be modified to enhance biocompatibility. Inspired by natural biological systems, we report a novel approach in which the heart valve was cross-linked with erythrocyte membrane biomimetic drug-loaded nanoparticles. Such modified heart valves not only preserved the structural integrity, stability, and mechanical properties of the GLU-treated BHVs but also greatly improved anti-coagulation, anti-inflammation, anti-calcification, and endothelialization. The in vitro results demonstrated that the modified heart valves had long-term anti-coagulation properties and enhanced endothelialization processes. The modified heart valves also showed good biocompatibility, including blood and cell biocompatibility. Most importantly, the modified heart valves reduced the TNF-α levels and increased IL-10 compared to GLU-treated BHVs. In vivo animal experiments also confirmed that the modified heart valves had an ultrastrong resistance to calcification after implantation in rats for 120 days. The mechanism of anti-calcification in vivo was mainly due to the controlled release of anti-inflammatory drugs that reduced the inflammatory response after valve implantation. In summary, this therapeutic approach based on BHVs cross-linking with erythrocyte membrane biomimetic nanoparticles sparks a novel design for valvular heart disease therapy.
Hu et al. (2020) studied Valvular heart disease. Heart valves cross-linked with erythrocyte membrane biomimetic drug-loaded nanoparticles vs. Glutaraldehyde (GLU)-treated biological heart valves (BHVs) was evaluated on Calcification, anti-coagulation, anti-inflammation, and endothelialization. Heart valves cross-linked with erythrocyte membrane drug-loaded nanoparticles demonstrated ultrastrong resistance to calcification after 120 days of implantation in rats compared to GLU-treated BHVs.