Chondroitin sulfate-functionalized polymeric nanoparticles for colon cancer-targeted chemotherapy

Targeted delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs to tumors is a major challenge in colon cancer chemotherapy. To overcome this bottleneck, we loaded camptothecin (CPT) into polymeric nanoparticles (NPs), and further functionalized their surface with chondroitin sulfate (CS). The resulting CS-CPT-NPs had a desirable hydrodynamic diameter (289 nm), narrow particle size distribution (polydispersity index = 0.192) and neutral surface charge. Furthermore, in vitro experiments revealed that the surface functionalization of CS endowed NPs with the capacity of colon cancer-targeted drug delivery, and significantly improved the anti-colon cancer activities and pro-apoptosis effects against colon cancer cells. Strikingly, treatment of colon tumor-bearing mice with different NPs clearly indicated that CS-CPT-NPs showed much better therapeutic outcomes than non-targeted NPs and no systemic toxicity. Taken together, these results demonstrated the promising potential of CS-CPT-NP as an effective drug delivery system for colon cancer-targeted chemotherapy.