Dr Rosalia Rodríguez, a member of the Neurolipid Research Group at UIC Barcelona and director of the Biomedical Sciences Degree, has led the study in collaboration with the researcher at the Innovation Center of Nanomedicine in Kawasaki, Japan, Dr Sabina Quader and her group, as well as researchers from the University of Barcelona.

To conduct the study, which has been carried out in vitro and in vivo in animals, the team designed polymeric nanoparticles that encapsulate drugs capable of inhibiting an enzyme involved in neuronal lipid metabolism. “First of all, we tested in neuronal cells and then in neuronal spheroids to see if nanoparticles had a greater ability to enter neurons compared to the free drug”, explained the lead researcher.

Rodríguez points out that previous studies had already shown that the specific inhibition of CPT1A in hypothalamus neurons reduced food intake and favoured weight loss, although there was a blockage in other peripheral tissues that had been associated with unwanted side effects. For this reason, according to Rodríguez, it was necessary to design a strategy that would selectively block CPT1A in the hypothalamus neurons, without affecting other cell types in the brain or other tissues, with the aim of managing intake and obesity.  

According to the researcher, this study opens up the possibility of using nanomedicines to direct treatment to a particular cell type in the brain and to treat, in addition to obesity, other diseases where CPT1A is important, such as glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer. In addition, Rosalia Rodríguez also pointed out that patients with pathologies that disrupt lipid metabolism in hypothalamus neurons could also benefit from this therapeutic target.

As the researcher says, the results of this study are yet another example of how nanomedicine is making headway in treating diseases such as cancer, since it allows specific drug releases in a specific area of the body, minimising adverse reactions associated with ‘off-target’ effects. 

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Imatge: Sebastián Zagmutt Caroca