A model that mimics the blood brain barrier (BBB) has been developed by researchers at the University of Portsmouth using all human cells.
According to Zaynah Maherally, this development could pave the way for better, more efficient and reliable drugs to treat brain diseases. Details were published in FASEB earlier this month.
"The blood brain barrier is strikingly complex and notoriously difficult for scientists to breach,” Maherally explains. “Its role, to protect the brain, makes it difficult for most drugs to make their way into the brain to treat brain tumours.”
The team’s major goal was to develop a 3D all-human reproducible and reliable model of the blood brain barrier using human cells in order to better simulate the human blood brain barrier.
Their in vitro 3D models incorporate relevant human, in vivo cell types and BL proteins, and were constructed with human brain endothelial cells, human astrocytes, and human brain pericytes in mono-, co-, and tricultures.
"This is the first real, 3D, all-human blood brain barrier model and it's hugely significant in our field," explains Geoff Pilkington, who leads the research group at Portsmouth.
Research will now widen, he said, to better understand how cancers metastasize from breast and lung to the brain as well as evaluating nano-particle drug delivery and making opportunities to create temporary openings in the barrier to allow drugs to pass through into the brain.
"It's taken several years to get to this stage and we believe this model will significantly reduce the number of animals used in such studies and reduce the time it takes to get a promising therapeutic into clinical trials," Maherally adds.
Image: The blood brain barrier. Image courtesy of Samah Jassam.