The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7257 p42
12 July 2003

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Nature Biotechnology abstract (more)

Nanoparticles deliver hepatic drugs

Japanese researchers believe they have found a new way of delivering drugs to the liver. They used a protein — envelope "L" particle — from the hepatitis B virus. When this protein is produced in large quantities it produces nanoparticles. Genes or proteins can be put inside these particles using pulses of electric current.

The researchers transferred the gene encoding human clotting factor IX into the nanoparticles and injected the product into mice transplanted with human liver tumours. The nanoparticles travelled to the human liver cells where the genes were released and expressed.

Shun-ichi Kuroda and colleagues from the research group say that the yeast-derived L particle is free of viral genomes, highly specific to human liver cells and able to accommodate drugs as well as genes. The study is published as an advance online publication in Nature Biotechnology.