Finding the 'gateway' to deliver drugs to the brain

A research team has developed an antibody that activates the opening of the blood-brain barrier, delivering drugs to treat neurological diseases.

The human brain has a blood barrier that protects the brain, completely isolated from the general blood circulation system. In particular, the blood-brain barrier helps prevent the entry of toxic molecules into the central nervous system.

Now, a research team has found a way to break it down temporarily and deliver drugs directly to the brain. Accordingly, the brain is made up of several billion neurons. These cells are vulnerable and essential for the normal functioning of the body, protected from the meninges and skull.

 The blood-brain barrier acts as a boundary separating the brain from the rest of the body.

The blood-brain barrier is like the boundary separating the brain from the rest of the body. It controls factors that are able to enter the brain cavity and has a filtering role, preventing harmful molecules from entering the brain.

By this logic, it means that the blood-brain barrier will also block some therapeutic drugs, hindering the treatment of neurological diseases. So, researchers at Yale University (USA) have developed a system that allows the blood-brain barrier to open for several hours at a pre-selected time, allowing drugs to be delivered into the brain.

This is the first time that a research team has been able to temporarily stabilize the blood-brain barrier to allow treatment of brain diseases. Among them, the human brain has a WNT signaling pathway involved in maintaining the integrity of the barrier between the brain and the rest of the body.

The Unc5B receiver is able to control this pathway by keeping the barrier impermeable. To do this, it must be joined to its ligand Netrin-1.

 An antibody can temporarily stabilize the blood-brain barrier, allowing people to deliver drugs into the brain to treat neurological diseases.

A triggering antibody that opens the brain barrier on demand

Based on the above principle, the authors have developed an antibody capable of binding to Netrin-1. When the binding site of Netrin-1 to the Unc5B receptor is masked by an antibody, the blood-brain barrier opens.

The developed antibody was first injected into adult mice. Shows that the pathway to the brain remains open until the body rejects the injected antibody. Therefore, it is a system that helps maintain the open blood-brain barrier transiently and reversible during the use of therapeutic drugs, through the injection of antibodies.

This discovery could be a game-changer in the management of central nervous system diseases such as Parkinson's disease (a neurological disorder), multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease (dementia and dementia). memory) or brain cancer.