Mandal S, Kang G, Prathipati PK. et al. Nanoencapsulation introduces long-acting phenomenon to tenofovir alafenamide and emtricitabine drug combination: A comparative pre-exposure prophylaxis efficacy study against HIV-1 vaginal transmission. J Control Release. 2019 Jan 28;294:216-225. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2018.12.027. Epub 2018 Dec 18. PMID: 30576746; PMCID: PMC6339842.
Daily oral antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has proven efficacy for diverse groups of high-risk individuals. However, daily dosing regimen has augmented non-adherence. These experiments comparatively investigated the long-acting (LA) PrEP potency of subcutaneous (SubQ) administrated tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) and emtricitabine (FTC) loaded nanoparticles (NPs) to solution in humanized (hu) mice. TAF + FTC NPs and TAF + FTC solution (each drug at 200 mg/kg) were administered to hu-CD34-NSG mice (n = 3/time point) for plasma and tissue pharmacokinetic parameter estimation using LC-MS/MS. NP enhanced tissue ARV assimilation compared to plasma. The same dose was administered for PrEP efficacy in HIV-1 challenged hu-BLT mice (n = 5/group). The hu-BLT mice were vaginally challenged with a transmission-founder (T/F) virus at 5 × 105 TCID50 inoculation, on day 4, 7 and 14 post-SubQ treatments (PT) and were compared to infected-untreated-control hu-BLT mice.