Gold Nanoparticles Crossing Blood-Brain Barrier Prevent HSV-1 Infection and Reduce Herpes Associated Amyloid-βsecretion

Infections caused by HSV-1 and their typical outbreaks invading the nervous system have been related to neurodegenerative diseases. HSV-1 infection may deregulate the balance between the amyloidogenic and non-amyloidogenic pathways, raising the accumulation of amyloid-β peptides, one of the hallmarks in the neurodegenerative diseases. An effective treatment against both, HSV-1 infections and neurodegeneration, is a major therapeutic target. Therefore, gold nanoparticles (NPAus) have been previously studied in immunotherapy, cancer and cellular disruptions with very promising results. Our study demonstrates that a new NPAus family inhibits the HSV-1 infection in a neural-derived SK-N-MC cell line model and that this new NPAus reduces the HSV-1-induced β-secretase activity, as well as amyloid-β accumulation in SK-APP-D1 modifies cell line. We demonstrated that NPAuG3-S8 crosses the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and does not generate cerebral damage to in vivo CD1 mice model. The NPAuG3-S8 could be a promising treatment against neuronal HSV-1 infections and neuronal disorders related to the Aβ peptides.