Evaluation of reconstituted Sendai virus envelopes as intra-articular drug vectors: effects on normal and experimentally arthritic rabbit knee joints.

Fusogenic vesicles reconstituted from the envelopes of Sendai virus particles were injected into rabbit knee joints (both normal and experimentally arthritic) to evaluate the in-vivo biocompatibility of these putative drug carriers. The reconstituted Sendai virus envelopes (RSVE) were greater than 80% retained within the arthritic knee joints after 24 h and studies with 125I- and fluorescein-labelled RSVE both showed association of the vesicles with the synovia of arthritic and healthy joints. However, RSVE were found to cause inflammation after intra-articular injection, as judged by joint swelling and histological assessment, and these effects were exacerbated by successive administrations. RSVE-entrapped methotrexate, whether free or conjugated to human serum albumin, was ineffective in preventing the irritancy of RSVE or in reducing the chronic inflammation in joints affected by an experimentally induced arthritis.