Improved Therapeutic Efficacy in Bone and Joint Disorders by Targeted Drug Delivery to Bone

Site-specific drug delivery to bone is considered achievable using acidic amino acid (L-Asp or L-Glu) homopeptides known as acidic oligopeptides. We found that fluorescence-labeled acidic oligopeptides containing six or more residues bound strongly to hydroxyapatite, which is a major component of bone, and were selectively delivered to and retained in bone after systemic administration. We explored the applicability of this result for drug delivery by conjugation of estradiol and levofloxacin with an L-Asp hexapeptide. We also similarly tagged enzymes (tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase, beta-glucuronidase, and N-acetylgalactosamine-6-sulfate sulfatase) and decoy receptors (endogenous secretory receptor for advanced glycation end products and etanercept) to assess whether these would improve therapeutic efficacy. The L-Asp hexapeptide-tagged drugs, including enzymes and decoy receptors, were efficiently delivered to bone in comparison with the untagged drugs. An in vivo experiment confirmed the efficacy of L-Asp hexapeptide-tagged drugs on bone and joint disorders, although there was some loss of bioactivity of estradiol and levofloxacin in vitro, suggesting that the acidic hexapeptide was partly removed by hydrolysis in the body after delivery to bone. It was expected that the ester linkage to the hexapeptide would be susceptible to hydrolysis in situ, releasing the drug from the acidic oligopeptide. These results support the usefulness of acidic oligopeptides as bone-targeting carriers for therapeutic agents. We present some pharmacokinetic and pharmacological properties of the L-Asp hexapeptide-tagged drugs.