Nanomedicine Delivers Promising Treatments for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Abstract

An increased understanding in the pathophysiology of chronic inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, reveals that the diseased tissue and the increased presence of macrophages and other overexpressed molecules within the tissue can be exploited to enhance the delivery of nanomedicine. Nanomedicine can passively accumulate into chronic inflammatory tissues via the enhanced permeability and retention phenomenon, or be surface conjugated with a ligand to actively bind to receptors overexpressed by cells within chronic inflammatory tissues, leading to increased efficacy and reduced systemic side-effects. This review highlights the research conducted over the past decade on using nanomedicine for potential treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and summarizes some of the major findings and promising opportunities on using nanomedicine to treat this prevalent and chronic disease.

Keywords::

• chronic inflammation
• enhanced permeability and retention
• liposomes
• nanomedicine
• nanoparticles
• rheumatoid arthritis

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Z Cui’s research is supported in part by grants from the NIH (CA135274, CA179362 and AI105789), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81460454) and the Inner Mongolia Natural Science Funds (2014ZD05). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

Z Cui’s research is supported in part by grants from the NIH (CA135274, CA179362 and AI105789), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81460454) and the Inner Mongolia Natural Science Funds (2014ZD05). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.