Gel based on cubic liquid crystals nanoparticles enhance anti-inflammation and bone protection effects of triptolide

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic autoimmune disease which could not only cause inflammatory reaction, but also cause cartilage and bone damage. The clinical treatment is mainly aimed at anti-inflammatory and immunotherapy. Targeting both at inflammation and bone damage repairing will be great significance for RA therapy. Triptolide has high efficiency of anti-inflammatory and anti-immune. And reported it had the effect of bone damage repairing on RA rats. But serious toxicity limits its development and application. In this study we prepared lipid cubic crystal nanoparticles gels of triptolide (TP-LCNPS-GEL) to treat rheumatoid arthritis by transdermal delivery. Temperature sensitivity and microstructure of TP-LCNPS-GEL was characterized. TP-LCNPS-GEL greatly improved percutaneous permeability, prolong biological half-life, average retention time and bioavailability of triptolide. The animal experiment results show that TP-LCNPS-GEL enhanced the effects on anti-inflammatory and bone protection of triptolide with low toxicity. All results indicated that TP-LCNPS-GEL as a transdermal delivery preparation is an excellent choice for rheumatoid arthritis.