Chao Zhang,Shuangqing Fu,Fanghua Zhang,Mengnan Han,Xuming Wang,Jie Du,Honglei Zhang,Wei Li
Combination chemotherapy is emerging as an important strategy for cancer treatment with decreased side effects. However, chemotherapeutic drugs with different solubility are not easy to realize co-delivery in traditional nanocarriers. Herein, an affibody modified G-quadruplex DNA micellar prodrug (affi-F/GQs) of hydrophilic 5-fluorodeoxyuridine (FUdR) by integrating polymeric FUdRs into DNA strands is developed for the first time. To achieve synergistic efficacy with hydrophobic drugs, curcumin (Cur) is co-loaded into affi-F/GQs micelles to prepare the dual drug-loaded DNA micelles ([email protected]/GQs), in which affibody is employed as a targeting moiety to facilitate HER2 receptor-mediated uptake.[email protected]/GQs have a small size of approximately 130 nm and exhibit excellent stability. The system co-delivers FUdR and Cur in a ratiometric manner, and the drug loading rates are 21.1% and 5.6%, respectively. Compared with the physical combination of FUdR and Cur,[email protected]/GQs show higher cytotoxicity and greater synergistic effect on HER2 positive gastric cancer N87 cells. Surprisingly,[email protected]/GQs significantly enhance the expression and activity of apoptosis-associated proteins in Bcl-2/Bax-caspase 8, 9-caspase 3 apoptotic pathway, which is the main factor in the death of tumor cells induced by FUdR. Overall, this nanoencapsulation is a promising candidate for the targeted co-delivery of drugs with significant differences in solubility.Keywords:G-quadruplex;DNA micelles;affibody;5-fluorodeoxyuridine;curcumin;synergetic therapy
Combination chemotherapy is still of great importance as part of the standard clinical care for patients with HER2 positive breast cancer. As an attractive component, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been extensively studied as biosafety nanomaterials, but they are rarely explored as drug nanocarriers for targeted co-delivery of multiple chemotherapeutics. Herein, a novel affibody-DNA hybrid strands modified AuNPs were fabricated for co-loading nucleoside analogue (5-fluorodeoxyuridine, FUdR) and anthracycline (doxorubicin, Dox). FUdRs were integrated into DNA hybrid strands decorated on AuNPs by DNA solid phase synthesis, and Dox molecules were intercalated into their duplex regions. Affibody molecules coupled to the DNA hybrid strands were distributed the surface of AuNPs, giving them targeting for HER2. The new dual-drug-containing affibody-DNA-AuNPs (Dox@affi-F/AuNPs) owned compact and stable spherical nanostructures, and precise drug loading. Cytotoxicity tests demonstrated that these nanoparticles caused a higher inhibition in HER2 overexpressing breast cancer cells, and showed better synergistic antitumor activity than simple mixture of the two drugs. The related mechanistic studies proved that Dox@affi-F/AuNPs achieved a remarkable combined antitumor activity of Dox and FUdR by promoting more cells to enter apoptosis pathway. Our work provided a nanomedicine platform for targeted co-delivery of nucleoside analog therapeutics and anthracycline anticancer drugs to achieve synergistic treatment of HER2 + cancer.