Primary prostate cancer (PC) progresses to castration-resistant PC (CRPC) during androgen deprivation therapy (ADR) in early stages of prostate cancer. Thus, rather than blocking the androgen-related pathway further, docetaxel (DTX)-based therapy has become the most effective and standard first-line chemotherapy for CRPC. Although the therapy is successful in prolonging the survival of patients with CRPC, chemotherapy resistance develops due to the abnormal activation of the androgen receptor (AR) signaling pathway. Thus, to optimize DTX efficacy, continued maximum suppression of androgen levels and AR signaling is required. Here, we designed a prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted nanosystem to carry both DTX and AR siRNA (Di-PP/AR-siRNA/DTX) for CRPC treatment. Specifically, DTX was encapsulated into the hydrophobic inner layer, and the AR siRNA was then condensed with the cationic PEI block in the hydrophilic outer layer of the PEI-PLGA polymeric micelles. The micelles were further coated with PSMA-targeted anionic polyethylene glycol-polyaspartic acid (Di-PEG-PLD). In vitro and in vivo results demonstrated that the resulting Di-PP/AR-siRNA/DTX exhibited prolonged blood circulation, selective targeting, and enhanced antitumor effects. Consequently, Di-PP/AR-siRNA/DTX holds great potential for efficient CRPC treatment by combining chemotherapy and siRNA silencing of androgen-related signaling pathways.Keywords:prostate cancer;androgen receptor;siRNA delivery;docetaxel;PSMA targeting
68 Ga-radiolabeled small molecules that specifically target prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) have been extensively investigated, and some of these tracers have been used in the diagnosis of prostate cancer via 68 Ga-positron emission tomography ( 68 Ga-PET). Nevertheless, current 68 Ga-labeled radiotracers show only fair detection rates for metastatic prostate cancer lesions, especially those with lower levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA), which often occurs in the biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer. The goal of this study was to design and synthesize a new PSMA-targeted radiotracer, 68 Ga-SC691, with high affinity for prostate cancer cells and excellent pharmacokinetics. To this end, structural optimization was carried out on the bifunctional group, target motif, and linker while the high affinity targeting scaffold remained. To explore its potential in the clinic, a comparative study was further performed in vitro and in vivo between 68 Ga-SC691 and 68 Ga-PSMA-11, a clinically approved tracer for PSMA-positive prostate cancer. SC691 was radiolabeled to provide 68 Ga-SC691 in 99% radiolabeling yield under mild conditions. High uptake and a high internalization ratio into LNCaP cells were observed in in vitro studies. In vivo studies showed that 68 Ga-SC691 had favorable biodistribution properties and could specifically accumulate on PSMA-positive LNCaP xenografts visualized by micro-PET/CT. This radiotracer showed excellent PET imaging quality and comparable, if not higher, uptake in LNCaP xenografts than 68 Ga-PSMA-11.