Nitin Joshi, Jing Yan, Seth Levy, Sachin Bhagchandani, Kai V Slaughter, Nicholas E Sherman, Julian Amirault, Yufeng Wang, Logan Riegel, Xueyin He, Tan Shi Rui, Michael Valic, Praveen K Vemula, Oscar R Miranda, Oren Levy, Ellen M Gravallese, Antonios O Aliprantis, Joerg Ermann, Jeffrey M Karp
Local delivery of therapeutics for the treatment of inflammatory arthritis (IA) is limited by short intra-articular half-lives. Since IA severity often fluctuates over time, a local drug delivery method that titrates drug release to arthritis activity would represent an attractive paradigm in IA therapy. Here we report the development of a hydrogel platform that exhibits disassembly and drug release controlled by the concentration of enzymes expressed during arthritis flares. In vitro, hydrogel loaded with triamcinolone acetonide (TA) releases drug on-demand upon exposure to enzymes or synovial fluid from patients with rheumatoid arthritis...
April 3, 2018: Nature Communications