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Parkinson's disease (PD), one of the most common movement and neurodegenerative disorders, is challenging to treat. Levodopa is a common clinical drug for controlling the symptoms of PD, but it only replenishes the missing dopamine, can’t protect dopaminergic neurons. While curcumin as a neuroprotective agent has been reported for treatment of PD. Herein, we present a novel organic-inorganic composite nanoparticle with brain targeting (lf-protocells) for co-delivery of levodopa and curcumin, and demonstrate its attractive use as a biocompatible platform for PD treatment. The nanoparticle system is comprised of a lactoferrin (lf) modified lipid bilayer (LB) containing curcumin as its outer membrane and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) containing levodopa as its supporting inner core. Our studies illustrate that the lf-protocells have a spherical morphology, and can be used to co-load levodopa and curcumin efficiently; the combination of curcumin and levodopa alleviates the apoptosis of PD cells, decreases the expression of a-synuclein and increase the expression of tyrosine hydroxylase in SH-SY5Y cells as compared to single drug; the binary-drug loaded lf-protocells ameliorate oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction as compared to combination of free drugs; lf-protocells improve significantly the distribution in brain compared with unmodified protocells; binary-drug loaded lf-protocells have better performance of motor function in mouse than unmodified protocells and combination of free drugs. In conclusion, binary-drug loaded lf-protocells show better therapeutic efficacy in both cell model and mouse model of PD than combination of free drugs and lower toxicity than bare MSNs. These results suggest that lf-protocells can be used as a promising drug delivery platform for targeted therapy against PD and other diseases of the central nervous system.
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