Huazhong Agricultural University scientific research team cleverly uses natural capsaicin to specifically treat tumors

　　Recently, the team of Professor Han Heyou from the School of Science of Huazhong Agricultural University has created a new tumor-specific treatment method with high safety and good selectivity based on natural capsaicin
.

 

　　Chili is a common vegetable in daily life and is loved by people
.
Studies have shown that eating chili often has many benefits to the body, and can be used for the prevention and adjuvant treatment of some diseases
.
Among them, capsaicin in peppers is an important component that plays a role
.
Professor Han Heyou's team skillfully combined natural capsaicin with nanotechnology to develop a capsaicin delivery nanosystem with high safety and excellent selectivity
.
The system uses CaCO3 as a carrier, which not only improves the problems of high hydrophobicity of capsaicin molecule, poor blood stability, allergy in some people, and difficulty in direct in vivo application, but also effectively realizes the tumor-selective activation of transient potential receptor vanillin receptor 1 (TRPV1).
), induce excessive influx of calcium ions, and achieve the goal of specific tumor treatment
.

 

　　The researchers synthesized CaCO3 nanoparticles and loaded capsaicin by gas-phase diffusion method, and successfully prepared capsaicin-loaded CaCO3 nanoparticles (CaCO3@CAP-PEG) by further modifying phospholipid molecules and polyethylene glycol
.
The nanoparticles have good dispersibility and stability in aqueous solution, which facilitates the accumulation of high lipophilic capsaicin into tumor tissue through blood
.
In addition, due to the good acid responsiveness of CaCO3 nanoparticles, they can effectively and rapidly dissociate in the acidic microenvironment of tumors and release capsaicin molecules, which can increase the concentration of tumor calcium ions and achieve specific activation of TRPV1 channels
.

 

　　In vitro and in vivo experiments show that the activation of TRPV1 by the nanoparticles under acidic conditions can effectively increase the calcium ion concentration in tumor cells, resulting in mitochondrial damage and increased intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), ultimately leading to tumor cell apoptosis.
And tumor growth is inhibited, achieving specific tumor treatment
.

 

　　The related results were published in the journal Biomaterials under the title of "Activation of TRPV1 by capsaicin-loaded CaCO3 nanoparticles for tumor-specific therapy"
.
Master student Xu Mengqing and doctoral student Zhang Jin are the co-first authors of the paper, and Professor Han Heyou is the corresponding author
.
The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
.

 

　　Original link:

 

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　　【English summary】

 

　　Capsaicin is a natural non-toxic small molecular organic substance, which is often used clinically to reduce inflammation and pain.
Here, we report an acid-responsive CaCO3 nanoparticle loaded with capsaicin that can specifically activate TRPV1 channels and trigger tumor calcium ion therapy.
The excellent acid responsiveness of calcium carbonate enables it to precisely target the tumor sites.
The released capsaicin can specifically activate TRPV1 channel, overloading the intracellular calcium ion concentration and causing cell apoptosis, which provides a new safer and cheaper treatment.
We proved that the naturalness and non-toxicity of capsaicin make the CaCO3@CAP nanoparticles have excellent biocompatibility, which has good development prospects and clinical application potential.