Research Paper|Volume 12, Issue 10|pp 8953—8967

Valproic acid-labeled chitosan nanoparticles promote recovery of neuronal injury after spinal cord injury

Dimin Wang^2,³, Kai Wang¹, Zhenlei Liu¹, Zonglin Wang², Hao Wu¹

¹Department of Neurosurgery, Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
²School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
³College of Basic Medical Sciences, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China

Received: November 6, 2019Accepted: February 25, 2020Published: May 28, 2020

Copyright © 2020 Wang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Chitosan nanoparticles have been recognized as a new type of biomaterials for treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI). To develop a novel treatment method targeted delivery injured spinal cord, valproic acid labeled chitosan nanoparticles (VA-CN) were constructed and evaluated in the treatment of SCI. Our results demonstrated that administration of VA-CN significantly promoted the recovery of the function and tissue repair after SCI. Moreover, we found treatment of VA-CN inhibited the reactive astrocytes after SCI. Furthermore, administration of VA-CN enhanced immunoreactions of neuronal related marker NF160, which suggested that VA-CN could promote the neuroprotective function in rats of SCI. The production of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly decreased following treatment of VA-CN. Meanwhile, administration of VA-CN effectively improved the blood spinal cord barrier (BSCB) disruption after SCI. Administration of VA-CN could enhance the recovery of neuronal injury, suppress the reactive astrocytes and inflammation, and improve the blood spinal cord barrier disruption after SCI in rats. These results provided a novel and promising therapeutic manner for SCI.