PhD candidate West China School of Pharmacy, Sichuan University Chengdu, Sichuan, China (People's Republic)
Introduction: Restoring immune tolerance is the ultimate goal for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment.(1-2) The mostly reported oral or intravenous injection routes for the immunization of autoantigens cause gastrointestinal side effects, low patient compliance and unsatisfied immune tolerance induction.(3) In our previous work, we have shown that microneedles can be used to efficiently deliver biomacromolecules in a non-invasive and pain-free way. Herein, we for the first time investigated the use of a transdermal microneedle patch to co-deliver collagen type II peptide (CII245-270) auto-antigen and rapamycin for reversing immune disorders of RA.
Learning Objectives:
Recognize how transdermal microneedles enable localized delivery of autoantigen and immune modulator.
Understand how microneedles induce tolerogenic dendritic cells in skin to restore immune balance.
