Received: 27 November 2024 / Accepted: 10 March 2025
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists 2025
Abstract
Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is a rare and serious chronic interstitial lung disease that may endanger the lives of patients.
The median survival time of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fbrosis is short, and the mortality rate is higher than that of
many types of cancer. At present, pirfenidone (PFD) and nintedanib (NDNB) have been approved by FDA for IPF, but they can
only delay the process of pulmonary fbrosis and cannot cure the disease. Therefore, it is urgent to develop other drugs with the
efect of improving pulmonary fbrosis. Ellagic acid (EA) can inhibit the Wnt-signaling pathway and has an efect in treating
pulmonary fbrosis induced by bleomycin (BLM) in mice. However, its solubility is poor, resulting in its low bioavailability
and limited therapeutic benefts, so its clinical application has been limited. Herein, based on the characteristics of nano-drug
lung delivery system, chitosan (CS) was selected as the carrier, and ellagic acid-loaded chitosan nanoparticles (EA-CS-NPs)
were prepared by ionic gelation method. The EE% and DL% of prepared EA-CS-NPs was 73.73±4.52% and 6.23±1.09%,
the particle size was 119.6±5.51 nm (PDI=0.234±0.017), the zeta potential was 29.833±0.503 mV. The morphology of the
nanoparticles was observed by TEM microscope, which was round, uniform dispersion, indicating that the preparation process
is stable and feasible. The toxicity experiment showed that EA-CS-NPs maintained 80% cell viability, signifcantly higher than
that of the NDNB group, indicating lower toxicity and better inhibitory efects on TGF-β1-stimulated MLg and NIH-3T3 cells.
Wound healing assay results showed that the inhibitory efect of EA-CS-NPs on cell migration was more pronounced than that
of EA in the same amount of EA-containing drugs. Drug uptake experiments revealed that EA-CS-NPs signifcantly enhanced
drug uptake in MLg and NIH-3T3 cells. In vivo, Cy7-CS-NPs exhibited higher fuorescence intensity in rat lungs compared to
Cy7 solution, indicating better lung retention. The in vivo efcacy test showed that compared with the EA group, EA-CS-NPs
could better reduce the area of pulmonary fbrosis and collagen deposition, improve lung function, and have a longer retention
time in the lung. In summary, our results revealed that EA-CS-NPs may be a good choice for the treatment of pulmonary fbrosis.
Keywords chitosan nanoparticle · ellagic acid · intratracheal instillation · pulmonary fbrosis
Introduction
Idiopathic pulmonary fbrosis (IPF) is a severe, progressive
lung disease with an unclear cause, which may endanger the
lives of patients. Its clinicopathological manifestations are
mainly abnormal activation and proliferation of lung fbro
blasts, resulting in continuous deposition of lung extracel
lular matrix, which seriously impairs the lung function of
patients and threatens the lives of patients [1–4]. The data
showed that the prevalence of social idiopathic pulmonary
fbrosis can reach 0.33–4.51 per 10,000 people today [5–7].
It is relatively high and rising year by year. It is not opti
mistic that the median survival of patients with idiopathic
pulmonary fbrosis is less than 3 years, and the mortality
rate is even higher than that of many types of cancer [8–10].
At present, two drugs have been approved by the FDA
for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fbrosis, namely
pirfenidone (PFD) and nintedanib (NDNB) [11–13]