Professor Jiangning Hu from Dalian University of Technology used urocanic acid and α-lipoic acid (α-LA) to modify glycogen to construct an amphiphilic polymer (LA-UaGly) and used it to deliver ginsenoside Rh2 for treatment Ulcerative colitis (UC). The polymer LA-UaGly can self-assemble in water to form blank NPs, which has good stability and can successfully encapsulate ginsenoside Rh2 to form Rh2 NPs, with an encapsulation rate of 74.36±0.34%. DLS analysis shows that Rh2 NPs are spherical with a particle size of 128.9±0.3 nm.

Studies have shown that Rh2 NPs have a dual response to pH and redox release behavior and good in vivo safety. In vitro experiments showed that Rh2 NPs can effectively release Rh2 into RAW264.7 cells to protect cells from apoptosis (p <0.05). At the same time, Rh2 NPs can also exhibit strong anti-inflammatory activity by significantly inhibiting the excessive production of nitric oxide (NO) and inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6) (p <0.05) .
In vivo experiments show that Rh2 NPs can significantly improve the weight loss, colon length, disease activity index (DAI) score and myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity of mice induced by sodium dextran sulfate (DSS) (p <0.05). Pathological analysis shows that Rh2 NPs can effectively reduce histological damage and inflammatory infiltration in mice, and can effectively regulate the intestinal flora of mice, improve the species uniformity and abundance of intestinal flora in mice, and restore intestinal bacteria The species diversity of the group. In short, this research provides a new and efficient strategy for the effective treatment of UC.