研究人员修改型肝炎病毒的靶向给药

StephenW

Researchers modify hepatitus B virus for targeted drug delivery
September 21, 2015    0 Comments

Jeremy Quach

Desk Editor
   

Stanford researchers have redesigned the hepatitis B virus so that it is invisible to the immune system and can target certain cells without delivering an infectious payload. This report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering James Swartz, who led the report, hopes his findings will advance targeted drug delivery.

Targeted drug delivery, which enables treatment to target specific, diseased cells, is one of the main goals of modern medicine.

“We call this a smart particle,” Swartz said in a Stanford News article. “We make it smart by adding molecular tags that act like addresses to send the therapeutic payload where we want it to go.”
Professor James Swartz holds an enlarged replica of a virus-like particle. Swartz and his team have re-engineered a virus to deliver therapies to cells.


Viruses are similarly able to target specific cells but instead carry an infectious payload. As a result, the immune system attacks viruses in the body. Working with the virus that causes hepatitis B, Swartz and Yuan Lu, a pharmacology researcher at the University of Tokyo, took advantage of this targeting system for drug delivery.

The researchers changed the DNA of the virus – in particular, its middle layer, called the capsid – so that it appeared invisible in the immune system. This enabled the virus to travel throughout the body without being attacked. They also removed the infectious payload, opening possibilities to inject a medicinal payload instead, and changed the surface of the virus so that molecular tags can be attached to it. These molecular tags allow the virus to target only diseased cells.

Swartz explained that when he originally proposed his project, funding agencies said it couldn’t be done. After four years of work, Swartz hopes his findings will breathe new life into targeted drug delivery, where “smart particles” can deliver treatment to only harmful cells and leave healthy cells alone. This would also minimize the side effects of medication and radiation.

“This was a proof-of-principle experiment so there’s a lot of work to be done,” Swartz said. “But I believe we can use this smart particle to deliver cancer-fighting immunotherapies that will have minimal side effects.”

Swartz said the next steps are to train the immune system to recognize certain cancers by attaching cancer tags to the smart particle and then to further engineer the DNA so that protein can self-assemble around a small medicinal payload.

“That will be quite complicated, but we’ve already gotten this far when they said it couldn’t be done,” Swartz said.

StephenW

研究人员修改型肝炎病毒的靶向给药
2015年9月21日0评论

杰里米Quach

台编辑器


斯坦福研究人员已经重新设计了乙肝病毒，以便它是不可见的免疫系统，并可以针对某些细胞而不递送感染有效载荷。这份报告发表在美国国家科学院的诉讼，以及化学工程和生物工程詹姆斯·斯沃茨，谁领导的报告中教授，希望他的发现将推动靶向给药。

靶向给药，使治疗针对特定的，病变细胞，是现代医学的主要目标之一。

“我们称这是一个聪明的粒子，”斯沃茨在斯坦福大学的新闻文章说。 “我们让智能通过添加像地址发送的治疗有效载荷的地方，我们希望它去的分子标记。”
詹姆斯斯沃兹教授拥有的病毒样颗粒的放大的复制品。斯沃茨和他的团队已重新设计的病毒提供疗法的细胞。


病毒也同样能够针对特定的细胞，而是携带传染病的有效载荷。其结果，免疫系统攻击的病毒在体内。与导致乙肝病毒的工作，斯沃茨和袁璐，一个药理学研究员东京大学，把这个定位系统的优势给药。

研究人员改变了病毒的DNA的 - 特别是其中间层，被称为衣壳 - ，以便它在免疫系统中出现了不可见的。这使得该病毒在整个身体行进而不被攻击。他们还除去感染性有效载荷，开放的可能性，而不是注入药用有效载荷，并改变了该病毒的表面上，使得分子标签可以附着到它。这些分子标记让病毒只针对病变细胞。

斯沃茨解释说，当他最初提出他的项目，资助机构说，它可能无法做到的。经过四年的工作，斯沃茨希望他的发现将注入新的生命靶向给药，其中“智能粒子”可以提供治疗，不仅危害细胞和息事宁人的健康细胞。这也将减少药物和辐射的副作用。

“这是证明性的原则实验所以有很多工作要做，”斯沃茨说。 “但我相信我们可以用这个聪明的颗粒，提供抗癌免疫疗法，将有最小的副作用。”

斯沃茨说，下一步是训练免疫系统通过将肿瘤标​​记智能粒子识别某些癌症，然后进一步工程师的DNA使蛋白质可以自我组装身边的小药的有效载荷。

“这将是相当复杂的，但我们已经得到了这一步的时候，他们都说这是不可能做到的，”斯沃茨说。