Tag Archives: Mingzhen Zhang

Ginger-derived nano-lipids for colorectal cancer

Didier Merlin’s team at the US Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs along with researchers from Georgia State University and from two Chinese universities have published more research on what they are calling, GDNPs, or ginger-derived nanoparticles. (See my Sept. 8, 2016 posting for my first post about ginger nanoparticles and the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs.)

Ginger, well known for relieving nausea, may soon be able to claim another health benefit according to a Sept. 6, 2016 news item on ScienceDaily,

Edible ginger-derived nano-lipids created from a specific population of ginger nanoparticles show promise for effectively targeting and delivering chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat colon cancer, according to a study by researchers at the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Wenzhou Medical University and Southwest University in China.

A Sept. 6, 2016 Georgia State University news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes both the situation with colorectal cancer in the US and the research,

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among men and women in the United States, and the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among men and women worldwide. The incidence of colorectal cancer has increased over the last few years, with about one million new cases diagnosed annually. Non-targeted chemotherapy is the most common therapeutic strategy available for colon cancer patients, but this treatment method is unable to distinguish between cancerous and healthy cells, leading to poor therapeutic effects on tumor cells and severe toxic side effects on healthy cells. Enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to target cancer cells would be a major development in the treatment of colon cancer.

In this study, the researchers isolated a specific nanoparticle population from edible ginger (GDNP 2) and reassembled their lipids, naturally occurring molecules that include fats, to form ginger-derived nano-lipids, also known as nanovectors. To achieve accurate targeting of tumor tissues, the researchers modified the nanovectors with folic acid to create FA-modified nanovectors (FA nanovectors). Folic acid shows high-affinity binding to the folate receptors that are highly expressed on many tumors and almost undetectable on non-tumor cells.

The FA nanovectors were tested as a delivery platform for doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic drug used to treat colon cancer. The researchers found that doxorubicin was efficiently loaded into the FA nanovectors, and the FA nanovectors were efficiently taken up by colon cancer cells, exhibited excellent biocompatibility and successfully inhibited tumor growth. Compared to a commercially available option for delivering doxorubicin, the FA nanovectors released the drug more rapidly in an acidic pH that resembled the tumor environment, suggesting this delivery strategy could decrease the severe side effects of doxorubicin. These findings were published in the journal Molecular Therapy.

“Our results show that FA nanovectors made of edible ginger-derived lipids could shift the current paradigm of drug delivery away from artificially synthesized nanoparticles toward the use of nature-derived nanovectors from edible plants,” said Dr. Didier Merlin, a professor in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State and a Research Career Scientist at the VA Medical Center. “Because they are nontoxic and can be produced on a large scale, FA nanovectors derived from edible plants could represent one of the safest targeted therapeutic delivery platforms.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Edible Ginger-derived Nano-lipids Loaded with Doxorubicin as a Novel Drug-delivery Approach for Colon Cancer Therapy by Mingzhen Zhang, Bo Xiao, Huan Wang, Moon Kwon Han, Zhan Zhang, Emilie Viennois, Changlong Xu, and Didier Merlin. Molecular Therapy (2016); doi:10.1038/mt.2016.159 Advance online publication 13 September 2016

This paper is behind a paywall.

Ginger nanoparticles for inflammatory bowel disease

I guess we’ll have to add ginger to the list of folk medicines (tumeric is another) which are being discovered by nanomedicine. An Aug. 17, 2016 news item on ScienceDaily describes the ‘ginger’ research at the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs,

A recent study by researchers at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center took them to a not-so-likely destination: local farmers markets. They went in search of fresh ginger root.

Back at the lab, the scientists turned the ginger into what they are calling GDNPs, or ginger-derived nanoparticles. The process started simply enough, with your basic kitchen blender. But then it involved super-high-speed centrifuging and ultrasonic dispersion of the ginger juice, to break it up into single pellets. (Don’t try this at home!)

The research team, led by Dr. Didier Merlin with VA and the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, believes the particles may be good medicine for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, the two main forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The particles may also help fight cancer linked to colitis, the scientists believe.

An Aug. 16, 2016 US Dept. of Veterans Affairs news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides more detail about the research,

Each ginger-based nanoparticle was about 230 nanometers in diameter. More than 300 of them could fit across the width of a human hair.

Fed to lab mice, the particles appeared to be nontoxic and had significant therapeutic effects:

  • Importantly, they efficiently targeted the colon. They were absorbed mainly by cells in the lining of the intestines, where IBD inflammation occurs.
  • The particles reduced acute colitis and prevented chronic colitis and colitis-associated cancer.
  • They enhanced intestinal repair. Specifically, they boosted the survival and proliferation of the cells that make up the lining of the colon. They also lowered the production of proteins that promote inflammation, and raised the levels of proteins that fight inflammation.

Part of the therapeutic effect, say the researchers, comes from the high levels of lipids–fatty molecules–in the particles, a result of the natural lipids in the ginger plant. One of the lipids is phosphatidic acid, an important building block of cell membranes.

The particles also retained key active constituents found naturally in ginger, such as 6-gingerol and 6-shogaol. Past lab studies have shown the compounds to be active against oxidation, inflammation, and cancer. They are what make standard ginger an effective remedy for nausea and other digestion problems. Traditional cultures have used ginger medicinally for centuries, and health food stores carry ginger-based supplements–such as chews, or the herb mixed with honey in a syrup–as digestive aids.

Delivering these compounds in a nanoparticle, says Merlin’s team, may be a more effective way to target colon tissue than simply providing the herb as a food or supplement.

The idea of fighting IBD with nanoparticles is not new. In recent years, Merlin’s lab and others have explored how to deliver conventional drugs via nanotechnology. Some of this research is promising. The approach may allow low doses of drugs to be delivered only where they are needed–inflamed tissue in the colon–and thus avoid unwanted systemic effects.

The advantage of ginger, say the researchers, is that it’s nontoxic, and could represent a very cost-effective source of medicine.

The group is looking at ginger, and other plants, as potential “nanofactories for the fabrication of medical nanoparticles.”

Merlin and his VA and Georgia State University coauthors elaborated on the idea in a report earlier this year titled “Plant-derived edible nanoparticles as a new therapeutic approach against diseases.” They wrote that plants are a “bio-renewable, sustainable, diversified platform for the production of therapeutic nanoparticles.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the most recent paper,

Edible ginger-derived nanoparticles: A novel therapeutic approach for the prevention and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease and colitis-associated cancer by Mingzhen Zhang, Emilie Viennois, Meena Prasad, Yunchen Zhang, Lixin Wang, Zhan Zhang, Moon Kwon Han, Bo Xiao, Changlong Xu, Shanthi Srinivasan, Didier Merlin. Biomaterials Volume 101, September 2016, Pages 321–340         doi:10.1016/j.biomaterials.2016.06.018

This paper is behind a paywall.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the team’s earlier paper,

Plant derived edible nanoparticles as a new therapeutic approach against diseases by Mingzhen Zhang, Emilie Viennois, Changlong Xu, & Didier Merlin. Tissue Barriers Volume 4, 2016 – Issue 2  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21688370.2015.1134415 Published online: 11 Feb 2016

This paper too is behind a paywall.