Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression increased significantly in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration, which induced the formation of pathological blood vessels. Dexamethasone is an exogenous anti-angiogenic drug while bevacizumab is an endogenous anti-angiogenic drug. They both have been widely used in ophthalmology. However, independent administration is not enough to completely block the development of choroidal neovascularization (CNV), and the number of eyes vitreous injections is limited. Reasonable combination of drugs may produce significantly better therapeutic effect than single drug treatment. The cyclic RGD (cRGD) peptide has a particularly high affinity with retinal pigment epithelial cells, where VEGF secretes from. In this study, we prepared nanoparticles of bevacizumab and dexamethasone with cRGD peptide as the target (aBev/cRGD-DPPNs). The particle size of the aBev/cRGD-DPPNs was 213.8 ± 1.5 nm, SEM results showed that the nano-carriers were well dispersed and spherical. The cell uptake study demonstrated the selectivity of the aBev/cRGD-DPPN to ARPE-19 with αVβ3 over expressed. The aBev/cRGD-DPPNs had a better apoptosis induction effect and an obvious inhibitory effect on migration, invasion, and capillary-like structures formation of human umbilical vein epithelial cells. The fluorescein fundus angiography study, immunohistochemistry and histopathological evaluation showed the aBev/cRGD-DPPNs greatly reduced the development of CNV on a rabbit model.
Keywords: age-related macular degeneration; anti-angiogenic drug; nanoparticles; retinal pigment epithelial cells; vascular endothelial growth factor.