MICROSCOPIC “Snot bots” smaller than a cell could deliver drugs to the body, sneaking through defenses “like a Trojan horse”.
Snot It acts as a protective, sticky barrier against germs, but it can also make it difficult to administer certain medications by trapping drug molecules.
The slimy substance – also known as mucus – not only coats the nose, but also protects the lungs, stomach, intestines and eyes by engulfing pathogens.
Now, researchers have developed little bots that get around this snot barrier.
Using mice, a team of scientists from the American Chemical Society demonstrated how their robots can pierce through the sticky, defensive layer of mucus and potentially deliver medications more efficiently.
The bots are so small that 10 of them lined up would only take up the width of a red blood cell.
Each bot is composed of porous particles that can be filled with drug molecules, helping to infiltrate medicines into the body’s defense system like a Trojan hose.
The researchers attached catalase enzymes – a biological catalyst that speeds up the rate of chemical reactions in cells – to the bots.
They also administered them to mice with mucus-liquefied hydrogen peroxide, which helped propel the snotty robots.
Nextthe team built their own model of the intestinal mucus layer, using human intestinal cells grown in the laboratory.
The bots passed through the model’s mucus layer in 15 minutes, without significantly damaging the underlying cells.
The mucus layers tend to be cleared and regenerated every 10 minutes to four and a half hours, according to the researchers, so it was important that the bots didn’t take too long to penetrate the snot.
It is estimated that this 15-minute period can prevent bots from becoming trapped and removed by the mucus layer.
The scientists performed further tests on the colon of rats and observed similar results.
The nanorobots were able to bypass the snot layer without damaging the underlying cells and tissues.
About 28% of the bots they deployed were able to cross the mucus barrier.
The researchers believe their bots are a promising way to deliver drugs that would normally be blocked by the mucosal barrier.
The study was published in the journal ACS Publications.
Previous nanorobot research
IT COMES after researchers developed nanorobots with hidden “lethal weapons” that were able to stop the spread of tumors without damaging surrounding healthy tissue.
These tiny machines were tested once again on mice.
Yang Wang, researcher at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at Karolinska Institutet, said: “We now need to investigate whether this works in more advanced cancer models that more closely resemble real human disease.
“We also need to find out what side effects the method has before it can be tested on humans.”
Read more about the research here.
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