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(Circulation Research. 2003;92:e62.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

UltraRapid Communication

Application of Nanoparticle Technology for the Prevention of Restenosis After Balloon Injury in Rats

Toyokazu Uwatoku, Hiroaki Shimokawa, Kohtaro Abe, Yasuharu Matsumoto, Tsuyoshi Hattori, Keiji Oi, Takehisa Matsuda, Kazunori Kataoka, Akira Takeshita

From the Departments of Cardiovascular Medicine (T.U., H.S., K.A., Y.M., T.H., K.O., A.T.) and Biomedical Engineering (T.M.), Kyushu University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Fukuoka, Japan; and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (K.K.), Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan.

Correspondence to Hiroaki Shimokawa, MD, PhD, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyushu University Graduate, School of Medical Sciences, 3-1-1 Maidashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan. E-mail shimo{at}cardiol.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp

Restenosis after percutaneous coronary intervention continues to be a serious problem in clinical cardiology. Recent advances in nanoparticle technology have enabled us to deliver an antiproliferative drug selectively to the balloon-injured artery for a longer time. NK911, which is a core-shell nanoparticle of polyethyleneglycol-based block copolymer encapsulating doxorubicin, accumulates in vascular lesions with increased permeability. We first confirmed that balloon injury caused a marked and sustained increase in vascular permeability (as evaluated by Evans blue staining) for a week in the rat carotid artery. We then observed that intravenous administration of just 3 times of NK911, but not doxorubicin alone, significantly inhibited the neointimal formation of the rat carotid artery at 4 weeks after the injury in both a single- and double-injury model. Immunostaining demonstrated that the effect of NK911 was due to inhibition of vascular smooth muscle proliferation but not to enhancement of apoptosis or inhibition of inflammatory cell recruitment. Measurement of vascular concentrations of doxorubicin confirmed the effective delivery of the agent to the balloon-injured artery by NK911 in both a single- and double-injury model. RNA protection assay demonstrated that NK911 inhibited expression of several cytokines but not that of apoptosis-related molecules. NK911 was well tolerated without any adverse systemic effects. These results suggest that nanoparticle technology to target vascular lesions with increased permeability is a promising and safe approach for the prevention of restenosis after balloon injury. The full text of this article is available at http://www.circresaha.org.

Key Words: nanoparticle • restenosis • angioplasty • drug delivery

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