A bone-targeting near-infrared luminescence nanocarrier facilitates alpha-ketoglutarate efficacy enhancement for osteoporosis therapy

Osteoporosis (OP), which largely increases the risk of fractures, is the most common chronic degenerative orthopedic disease in the elderly due to the imbalance of bone homeostasis. Alpha-ketoglutaric acid (AKG), an endogenous metabolic intermediate involved in osteogenesis, plays critical roles in osteogenic differentiation and mineralization and the inhibition of osteoclastogenic differentiation. However, the low bioavailability and poor bone-targeting efficiency of AKG seriously limit its efficacy in OP treatment. In this work, a bone-targeting, near-infrared emissive lanthanide luminescence nanocarrier loaded with AKG (β-NaYF4:7%Yb, 60%Nd@NaLuF4@mSiO2-EDTA-AKG, abbreviated as LMEK) is developed for the enhancement of AKG efficacy in OP therapy. By utilizing the NIR-II luminescence (>1000 nm) of LMEK, whole-body bone imaging with high spatial resolution is achieved to confirm the bone enrichment of AKG noninvasively in vivo. The results reveal that LMEK exhibits a remarkable OP therapeutic effect in improving the osseointegration of the surrounding bone in the ovariectomized OP mice models, which is validated by the enhanced inhibition of osteoclast through hypoxia-inducible factor-1α suppression and promotion of osteogenic differentiation in osteoblast. Notably, the dose of AKG in LMEK can be reduced to only 0.2 % of the dose when pure AKG is used in therapy, which dramatically improves the bioavailability of AKG and mitigates the metabolism burden. This work provides a strategy to conquer the low utilization of AKG in OP therapy, which not only overcomes the challenges in AKG efficacy for OP treatment but also offers insights into the development and application of other potential drugs for skeletal diseases. Alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG) is an intermediate within the Krebs cycle, participating in diverse metabolic and cellular processes, showing potential for osteoporosis (OP) therapy. However, AKG's limited bioavailability and inefficient bone-targeting hinder its effectiveness in treating OP. Herein, a near-infrared emissive nanocarrier is developed that precisely targets bones and delivers AKG, bolstering its effectiveness in OP therapy. Thanks to this efficient bone-targeting delivery, the AKG dosage is reduced to 0.2 % of the conventional treatment level. This marks the first utilization of a bone-targeting nanocarrier to amplify AKG's bioavailability and OP therapy efficacy. Furthermore, the mechanism of AKG-loaded nanocarrier regulating the biological behavior of osteoclasts and osteoblasts mediated is tentatively explored.