The TAT Protein Transduction Domain as an Intra-articular Drug-Delivery Technology

ObjectiveIntra-articular drug delivery holds great promise for the treatment of joint diseases such as osteoarthritis. The objective of this study was to evaluate the TAT peptide transduction domain (TAT-PTD) as a potential intra-articular drug delivery technology for synovial joints. DesignExperiments examined the ability of TAT conjugates to associate with primary chondrocytes and alter cellular function both in vitro and in vivo. Further experiments examined the ability of the TAT-PTD to bind to human osteoarthritic cartilage. ResultsThe results show that the TAT-PTD associates with chondrocytes, is capable of delivering siRNA for chondrocyte gene knockdown, and that the recombinant enzyme TAT-Cre is capable of inducing in vivo genetic recombination within the knee joint in a reporter mouse model. Lastly, binding studies show that osteoarthritic cartilage preferentially uptakes the TAT-PTD from solution. ConclusionsThe results suggest that the TAT-PTD is a promising delivery strategy for intra-articular therapeutics.