Cited by 487Barrier Structure and Function StudiesAdvanced Drug Delivery SystemsNerve injury and regeneration

Delivery of Neurotrophic Factors to the Central Nervous System: Pharmacokinetic Considerations

Thorne, Robert G., Frey, William H.·2001·Clinical Pharmacokinetics

Abstract

Neurotrophic factors are proteins with considerable potential in the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) diseases and traumatic injuries. However, a significant challenge to their clinical use is the difficulty associated with delivering these proteins to the CNS. Neurotrophic factors are hydrophilic, typically basic, monomeric or dimeric proteins, mostly in the size range of 5 to 30 kDa. Neurotrophic factors potently support the development, growth and survival of neurons, eliciting biological effects at concentrations in the nanomolar to femtomolar range. They are not orally bioavailable and the blood-brain and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barriers severely limit their ability to enter into and act on sites in the CNS following parenteral systemic routes of administration. Most neurotrophic factors have short in vivo half-lives and poor pharmacokinetic profiles. Their access to the CNS is restricted by rapid enzymatic inactivation, multiple clearance processes, potential immunogenicity and sequestration by binding proteins and other components of the blood and peripheral tissues. The development of targeted drug delivery strategies for neurotrophic factors will probably determine their clinical effectiveness for CNS conditions. Achieving significant CNS target site concentrations while limiting systemic exposure and distribution to peripheral sites of action will lessen unwanted pleiotropic effects and toxicity. Local introduction of neurotrophic factors into the CNS intraparenchymally by direct injection/infusion or by implantation of delivery vectors such as polymer matrices or genetically modified cells yields the highest degree of targeting, but is limited by diffusion restrictions and invasiveness. Delivery of neurotrophic factors into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) following intracerebroventricular or intrathecal administration is less invasive and allows access to a much wider area of the CNS through CSF circulation pathways. However, diffusional and cellular barriers to penetration into surrounding CNS tissue and significant clearance of CSF into the venous and lymphatic circulation are also limiting. Unconventional delivery strategies such as intranasal administration may offer some degree of CNS targeting with minimal invasiveness. This review presents a summary of the neurotrophic factors and their indications for CNS disorders, their physicochemical characteristics and the different approaches that have been attempted or suggested for their delivery to the CNS. Future directions for further research such as the potential for CNS disease treatment utilising combinations of neurotrophic factors, displacement strategies, small molecule mimetics, chimaeric molecules and gene therapy are also discussed.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2165/00003088-200140120-00003

Cites

310 of 310 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Thorne, R. G., & Frey, W. H.
Affiliations
Regions Hospital (US)
Venue
Clinical Pharmacokinetics
Published
2001
Volume
40
Issue
12
Pages
907-946
ISSN
0312-5963 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1973304468
Cited by
487
References
310
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 26 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 20
FWCI
1.14
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Clinical Pharmacokinetics (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Barrier Structure and Function Studies
  • Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Pharmaceutical Science › Advanced Drug Delivery Systems
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Nerve injury and regeneration
Keywords
neurotrophic factors, brain drug delivery, blood-brain barrier, blood-CSF barrier, intrathecal administration, intracerebroventricular administration, intranasal drug delivery, intraparenchymal injection, gene therapy, small molecule mimetics, central nervous system disorders, traumatic brain injury, pharmacokinetics, immunogenicity
MeSH terms
Animals, Central Nervous System Diseases, Drug Combinations, Humans, Nerve Growth Factors

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review