Development of DDS Actively to Overcome the Blood-brain Barrier in the Region of Ischemic Stroke

We previously showed that increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) after ischemic stroke enables extravasation of nano-sized liposomes and accumulation in the ischemic region, and that delivery of neuroprotective agents using liposomal drug delivery systems (DDS) is applicable for treating cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, entry of liposomes into the brain parenchyma was limited in the early stages after I/R possibly due to microvascular dysfunction induced by pathological progression. As such, new approaches to overcome the BBB are needed. Leukocytes can pass through inflamed BBB in I/R region due to membrane proteins displayed on their surface. We thus hypothesized that incorporation of leukocyte membrane proteins onto liposomal membranes would impart leukocyte-mimicking functions to liposomes and that leukocyte-mimetic liposomes (LM-Lipo) may pass through inflamed endothelial cells and BBB, similar to leukocytes. LM-Lipo prepared using intermembrane protein transfer from human leukemia cells showed significantly increased association to inflamed human umbilical vein endothelial cells relative to plain liposomes. Moreover, LM-Lipo passed through inflamed endothelial cell layer by regulating intercellular junctions. These results suggest that imparting leukocyte-like properties to liposomes via intermembrane protein transfer would be an eSective strategy to overcome inflamed endothelial barriers. In this review, we describe our findings on ischemic stroke treatment using liposomal DDS and the potential of LM-Lipo to overcome inflamed endothelial barriers.