Martin Götte (@gotteprof.bsky.social)

Placenta-tropic VEGF mRNA lipid nanoparticles ameliorate murine pre-eclampsia | Nature Pre-eclampsia is a placental disorder that affects 3–5% of all pregnancies and is a leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity worldwide1,2. With no drug available to slow disease progression, engineering ionizable lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for extrahepatic messenger RNA (mRNA) delivery to the placenta is an attractive therapeutic option for pre-eclampsia. Here we use high-throughput screening to evaluate a library of 98 LNP formulations in vivo and identify a placenta-tropic LNP (LNP 55) that mediates more than 100-fold greater mRNA delivery to the placenta in pregnant mice than a formulation based on the Food and Drug Administration-approved Onpattro LNP (DLin-MC3-DMA)3. We propose an endogenous targeting mechanism based on β2-glycoprotein I adsorption that enables LNP delivery to the placenta. In both inflammation- and hypoxia-induced models of pre-eclampsia, a single administration of LNP 55 encapsulating vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA resolves maternal hyp https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08291-2