Trash To Treasure: A Human Beard Derived Photothermal Drug Delivery Platform For Depression Therapy

Depression medication is still facing challenges, where the key issue is to explore a desirable delivery platform to assist drugs in penetrating blood-brain barrier (BBB). Herein, we prepared beard nanoscale particles (BNPs) from the beard of young Asian males, which were mainly composed by keratin and melanin. BNPs were able to load antidepressants (Fluoxetine) and exhibited therapeutic effect on depression. Moreover, in vitro and in vivo studies showed that BNPs held favorable photothermal conversion capability, prominent BBB permeability under near-infrared (NIR) irradiation and reliable biocompatibility. Deserved to be mentioned, BNPs also performed a pivotal role in redox equilibrium, which was thus capable of scavenging ROS induced by depression. Subsequently, behavioral and biochemical experiments also demonstrated significant depression-ameliorating effects in vivo. In summary, our data for the first time suggested that biological organism derived beard could serve as ideal low-cost nanovectors for depression therapy. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.