Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 10, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09601-3
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81303074, 81673719, 21473257, 21773311]
- Outstanding Youth Foundation of Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [2019JJ30042]
- Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [2019JJ50960]
- Special Program for Applied Research on Super Computation of NSFC-Guangdong Joint Fund
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Self-assembling natural drug hydrogels formed without structural modification and able to act as carriers are of interest for biomedical applications. A lack of knowledge about natural drug gels limits there current application. Here, we report on rhein, a herbal natural product, which is directly self-assembled into hydrogels through noncovalent interactions. This hydrogel shows excellent stability, sustained release and reversible stimuli-responses. The hydrogel consists of a three-dimensional nanofiber network that prevents premature degradation. Moreover, it easily enters cells and binds to toll-like receptor 4. This enables rhein hydrogels to significantly dephosphorylate I kappa B alpha, inhibiting the nuclear translocation of p65 at the NF kappa B signalling pathway in lipopolysaccharide-induced BV2 microglia. Subsequently, rhein hydrogels alleviate neuroinflammation with a long-lasting effect and little cytotoxicity compared to the equivalent free-drug in vitro. This study highlights a direct self-assembly hydrogel from natural small molecule as a promising neuroinflammatory therapy.
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