Gong Qianyuan, Sun Caiyun, Jiang Tao, Guo Yuanbiao
Medical Research Center, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University, The Third People's Hospital of Chengdu, Chengdu, 610031, People's Republic of China.
College of Animal Science, Xichang University, Xichang, 615013, People's Republic of China.
Int J Nanomedicine. 2025 May 20;20:6317-6331. doi: 10.2147/IJN.S515961. eCollection 2025.
Growing research is devoted to the development of plant-derived products as new therapeutic drugs to reduce side effects. Plant-derived exosome-like nanoparticles (ELNs) have shown promising potential in the treatment of colitis.
As a proof of concept, the efficacy of ELNs from edible (ZbELNs) in protecting macrophages from inflammation was determined by in vitro experiments. Moreover, we assess the therapeutic effect of ZbELNs to colitis in a mouse model.
ZbELNs were found to have an ideal particle size (160.0 nm) and contain a large number of lipids, some functional proteins or metabolites, and many small RNA molecules. The in vitro experiment results revealed that ZbELN pretreatment increased cell vitality and decreased the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Furthermore, the in vivo experiments indicated that oral administration of ZbELNs can significantly reduce disease activity index, increase colon length, and inhibit colon wall thickening, thereby alleviating acute colitis in dextran sulfate sodium-induced model mice. In addition, ZbELN treatment can reduce the degree of histological damage in the colon and suppress pro-inflammatory cytokines levels in mice serum. Notably, miRNA-1 and miRNA-21 in ZbELNs showed similar therapeutic effects on macrophage inflammation.
These findings suggest that ZbELNs are a novel natural nanomedicine with promising therapeutic potential for the treatment of colonic diseases.
越来越多的研究致力于开发植物源产品作为新型治疗药物以减少副作用。植物源外泌体样纳米颗粒（ELNs）在结肠炎治疗中显示出了有前景的潜力。
作为概念验证，通过体外实验确定了可食用植物（ZbELNs）来源的ELNs在保护巨噬细胞免受炎症影响方面的功效。此外，我们在小鼠模型中评估了ZbELNs对结肠炎的治疗效果。
发现ZbELNs具有理想的粒径（160.0纳米），并含有大量脂质、一些功能蛋白或代谢物以及许多小RNA分子。体外实验结果显示，ZbELN预处理可提高细胞活力并降低促炎细胞因子水平。此外，体内实验表明，口服ZbELNs可显著降低疾病活动指数，增加结肠长度，并抑制结肠壁增厚，从而减轻葡聚糖硫酸钠诱导的模型小鼠的急性结肠炎。此外，ZbELN治疗可减轻结肠组织学损伤程度并抑制小鼠血清中促炎细胞因子水平。值得注意的是，ZbELNs中的miRNA-1和miRNA-21对巨噬细胞炎症显示出相似的治疗效果。
这些发现表明，ZbELNs是一种新型天然纳米药物，在治疗结肠疾病方面具有有前景的治疗潜力。
