Developing extracellular vesicle based therapeutics against pre-term birth through the use of maternal-fetal interface on a chip

通过使用芯片上的母胎界面开发基于细胞外囊泡的早产疗法

• 批准号: 10247504
• 负责人: Arum Han
• 金额: $ 72.3万
• 依托单位: TEXAS ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT STATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2023-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10247504
• 关键词: 37 weeks gestation; Address; African American; Animal Model; Anti-Inflammatory Agents; Biological Process; Birth; Birth Rate; Cell membrane; Cell physiology; Cells; Cervix Uteri; Chorion; Clinical Trials; Coculture Techniques; Decidua; Devices; Disease; Disease model; Ensure; Environment; Etiology; Fetal Membranes; Fetus; Future; Gender; Goals; Growth; Health Care Costs; Heterogeneity; Homeostasis; Human; I Kappa B-Alpha; Immune; Immune response; In Vitro; Infection; Inflammation; Inflammatory; Inflammatory Response; Laboratories; Lead; Lipopolysaccharides; Maternal-Fetal Exchange; Mediator of activation protein; Membrane; Modeling; Mus; NF-kappa B; Nutrient; Organ; Oxidative Stress; Pathologic; Patients; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Phase; Phase I Clinical Trials; Physiological; Pilot Projects; Placenta; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications; Pregnancy Maintenance; Premature Birth; Premature Labor; Prevention strategy; Process; Property; Race; Reporting; Research; Risk; Risk Factors; Sampling; Side; Structure; System; Teratogens; Testing; Therapeutic; Tissue Microarray; Tissues; Toxic effect; Transgenic Mice; Tumor-infiltrating immune cells; United States; Uterine Contraction; Uterus; amnion; base; cost; drug mechanism; efficacy testing; engineered exosomes; extracellular vesicles; fetal; healthy pregnancy; in utero; in vivo; inhibitor/antagonist; innovative technologies; male; microbial; migration; model design; mouse model; neglect; neonatal death; neonatal morbidity; neonate; nonhuman primate; novel; novel therapeutics; organ on a chip; personalized care; preclinical trial; premature; racial diversity; response; side effect; stem cells; success; therapeutic candidate; therapeutic development; therapy design; trafficking; trophoblast

ABSTRACT Spontaneous preterm birth (PTB) accounts for ~60% of all preterm births (15 million PTBs/year and 1 million neonatal deaths around the globe). Balanced immune homeostasis by fetal and maternal compartments ensure pregnancy maintenance and feto-placental growth. Premature disruption of immune homeostasis and overwhelming host inflammatory response due to infectious or other non-infectious risk factors lead to majority of PTBs. PTB rate has not declined in the past several decades, and current PTB prevention strategies do not address fetal immune responses, a key mediator that triggers preterm labor. The proposing team has recently used an innovative technology to engineer exosomes to be enriched with an inhibitor to NF-κB, termed as super repressor IκBα [SR]. Pilot studies using a transgenic mouse model showed successful delay in PTB without any side effects that was associated with reduction in inflammation at the feto-maternal interface tissues (F-M; fetal membrane cells and maternal decidua). However, moving this to the next stage is challenging, as a very large number of non-human primates, the animal model that most closely resemble the human F-M interface, will be needed, which is cost prohibitive. An organ-on-chip (OOC) model that faithfully represents the structure, functions, and responses of human F-M interface can overcome such challenges. The proposing team has recently reported the first F-M interface OOC model, which was successfully utilized to show the interactive and transitional properties of primary cells, resembling their biological functions in utero. In the UG3 phase, this model will be expanded to include the full F-M interface, recreate a healthy and disease inflammatory state, and fully validated for their cellular functions and responses predisposing to PTB. The UG3 aims are: Aim 1 To validate the F-M interface OOC model; Aim 2 To establish disease F-M interface OOC models. The UH3 aims are: Aim 3 To test extracellular vesicle (EV)-encoded experimental drug NF-kB repressor (SR) on normal and disease F-M interface OOC models; Aim 4 Conduct pre-clinical trial using the OOC model to investigate the impact of racial diversity and gender of fetus on the efficacy of the experimental drug. The success of the proposed research will produce a personalized F-M interface OOC model that can mimic either healthy or disease state of pregnancy, which can be used to test the effect of candidate therapeutic molecules to expedite processes towards clinical trials and or eliminate/minimize certain steps from expensive clinical trials.

摘要