The application of local hypobaric pressure — A novel means to enhance macromolecule entry into the skin

AbstractThe local application of controlled hypobaric stress represents a novel means to facilitate drug delivery into the skin. The aims of this work were to understand how hypobaric stress modified the properties of the skin and assess if this penetration enhancement strategy could improve the percutaneous penetration of a macromolecule. Measurements of skin thickness demonstrated that the topical application of hypobaric stress thinned the tissue (p<0.05), atomic force microscopy showed that it shrunk the corneocytes in the stratum corneum (p<0.001) and the imaging of the skin hair follicles using multiphoton microscopy showed that it opened the follicular infundibula (p<0.001). Together, these changes contributed to a 19.6-fold increase in in vitro percutaneous penetration of a 10,000 molecular weight dextran molecule, which was shown using fluorescence microscopy to be localized around the hair follicles, when applied to the skin using hypobaric stress. In vivo, in the rat, a local hemodynamic response (i.e. a significant increase in blood flow, p<0.001) was shown to contribute to the increase in follicular transport of the dextran to produce a systemic absorption of 7.2±2.81fg·mL−1. When hypobaric stress was not applied to the rat there was no detectable absorption of dextran and this provided evidence that this novel penetration enhancement technique can improve the percutaneous penetration of macromolecules after topical application to the skin

IκBα and p65 Regulate the Cytoplasmic Shuttling of Nuclear Corepressors: Cross-talk between Notch and NFκB Pathways

Notch and NFκB pathways are key regulators of numerous cellular events such as proliferation, differentiation, or apoptosis. In both pathways, association of effector proteins with nuclear corepressors is responsible for their negative regulation. We have previously described that expression of a p65-NFκB mutant that lacks the transactivation domain (p65ΔTA) induces cytoplasmic translocation of N-CoR leading to a positive regulation of different promoters. Now, we show that cytoplasmic sequestration of p65 by IκBα is sufficient to both translocate nuclear corepressors SMRT/N-CoR to the cytoplasm and upregulate transcription of Notch-dependent genes. Moreover, p65 and IκBα are able to directly bind SMRT, and this interaction can be inhibited in a dose-dependent manner by the CREB binding protein (CBP) coactivator and after TNF-α treatment, suggesting that p65 acetylation is modulating this interaction. In agreement with this, TNF-α treatment results in downregulation of the Hes1 gene. Finally, we present evidence on how this mechanism may influence cell differentiation in the 32D myeloid progenitor system