Affiliations 

  • 1 Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Punjab, India
  • 2 Fatima College of Health Sciences, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
  • 3 Faculty of Medicine, Bioscience and Nursing, MAHSA University, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
  • 4 Faculty of Pharmacy, AIMST University, Kedah, Malaysia
  • 5 Amity Institute of Pharmacy, Amity University, Noida, India
  • 6 Natural & Medical Sciences Research Centre, University of Nizwa, Nizwa, Oman
  • 7 Chrono-Environment Laboratory, UMR CNRS 6249, Bourgogne Franche-Comté University, Besancon, France
  • 8 Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania
  • 9 Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Punjab, India. tapanbehl31@gmail.com
  • 10 Chitkara College of Pharmacy, Chitkara University, Punjab, India. singh.sukhbir12@gmail.com
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2021 Nov;28(43):60459-60476.
PMID: 34545518 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-16570-y

Abstract

Meningitis is an inflammation of the protective membranes called meninges and fluid adjacent the brain and spinal cord. The inflammatory progression expands all through subarachnoid space of the brain and spinal cord and occupies the ventricles. The pathogens like bacteria, fungi, viruses, or parasites are main sources of infection causing meningitis. Bacterial meningitis is a life-threatening health problem that which needs instantaneous apprehension and treatment. Nesseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Haemophilus flu are major widespread factors causing bacterial meningitis. The conventional drug delivery approaches encounter difficulty in crossing this blood-brain barrier (BBB) and therefore are insufficient to elicit the desired pharmacological effect as required for treatment of meningitis. Therefore, application of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems has become imperative for successful dealing with this deadly disease. The nanoparticles have ability to across BBB via four important transport mechanisms, i.e., paracellular transport, transcellular (transcytosis), endocytosis (adsorptive transcytosis), and receptor-mediated transcytosis. In this review, we reminisce distinctive symptoms of meningitis, and provide an overview of various types of bacterial meningitis, with a focus on its epidemiology, pathogenesis, and pathophysiology. This review describes conventional therapeutic approaches for treatment of meningitis and the problems encountered by them while transmitting across tight junctions of BBB. The nanotechnology approaches like functionalized polymeric nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carrier, nanoemulsion, liposomes, transferosomes, and carbon nanotubes which have been recently evaluated for treatment or detection of bacterial meningitis have been focused. This review has also briefly summarized the recent patents and clinical status of therapeutic modalities for meningitis.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.