Zhou, M. (2024). The effects of inflammation on blood-brain barrier permeability and the ability of cancer nanomedicine to cross the blood-brain barrier. The Young Researcher, 8(1), 192-210. http://www.theyoungresearcher.com/papers/zhou.pdf

Abstract
There are many membranes around the body, such as the blood-brain barrier (BBB), that stop treatment drugs from reaching targeted disease sites. Inflammation is known to disrupt various membranes in different ways. In this study, inflammation was induced on the BBB, and two assays were performed to measure BBB permeability. In the first assay, the cells were stained to visualize the cell nuclei and adherens junctions, respectively. The results of this immunostaining demonstrated that the cells treated with inflammation had significantly less VE-cadherin expression at the cell junctions, indicating increased BBB permeability. In addition, a transwell assay was used to quantify the movement of particles across a brain endothelial cell layer. Inflammation increased the quantity of particles that were able to cross through. These findings can help to optimize the treatment of brain diseases by increasing BBB permeability and allowing more drugs to be delivered to the brain.

Keywords: blood-brain barrier, permeability, inflammation, nanoparticles, drug delivery


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