Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease and Notch pathway plays a pivotal role in synoviocytes involved in progression of RA.
Herein, we have designed a self-assembled polymeric micelles based on polycaprolactone-polyethylene glycol (PCL-PEG) and polyethylenimine-polyethylene glycol (PEI-PEG) was prepared and loaded with methotrexate and Notch-1 siRNA for the effective treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
The MTX/siRNA-loaded polymeric micelles (siM-PM) showed appreciable cellular uptake in Raw264.7 cells which were activated with LPS and did not exhibit any toxicity to Raw264.7 and HUVEC cells. The AUC of siM-PM was 4-fold higher compared to that of free MTX while t1/2 was 6 fold for siM-PM compared to that of free drug indicating the superior pharmacokinetic parameters. Importantly, siM-PM significantly reduced the paw thickness and slowed the disease progression remarkably, indicating that siM-PM is very effective in recovering the edema in arthritic animals. Importantly, 2-fold decrease in arthritic score was observed in siM-PM treated group at the end of day 24. The data clearly reveals anti-inflammatory effect of combinational nanoparticle due to the sequence specific downregulation of Notch-1 expression in the RA clinical models.
Overall, nanomedicine-based delivery of MTX and siRNA could overcome the side effects of small molecules and could improve the therapeutic effect of siRNA in rheumatoid arthritis.