Authors: Sung Pil Kwon, Byung‐Hee Hwang, Eun‐Hye Park, Han Young Kim, Ju‐Ro Lee, Mikyung Kang, Seuk Young Song, Mungyo Jung, Hee Su Sohn, Eunmin Kim, Chan Woo Kim, Kwan Yong Lee, Gyu Chul Oh, Eunho Choo, Songhyun Lim, Yeonseok Chung, Kiyuk Chang, Byung‐Soo Kim
Published: 2021-07-03
Source: Full article
AbstractSevere cardiac damage following myocardial infarction (MI) causes excessive inflammation, which sustains tissue damage and often induces adverse cardiac remodeling toward cardiac function impairment and heart failure. Timely resolution of post‐MI inflammation may prevent cardiac remodeling and development of heart failure. Cell therapy approaches for MI are time‐consuming and costly, and have shown marginal efficacy in clinical trials. Here, nanoparticles targeting the immune system to attenuate excessive inflammation in infarcted myocardium are presented. Liposomal nanoparticles loaded with MI antigens and rapamycin (L‐Ag/R) enable effective induction of tolerogenic dendritic cells presenting the antigens and subsequent induction of antigen‐specific regulatory T cells (Tregs). Impressively, intradermal injection of L‐Ag/R into acute MI mice attenuates inflammation in the myocardium by inducing Tregs and an inflammatory‐to‐reparative macrophage polarization, inhibits adverse cardiac remodeling, and improves cardiac function. Nanoparticle‐mediated blocking of excessive inflammation in infarcted myocardium may be an effective intervention to prevent the development of post‐MI heart failure.