Ghent Research Group on Nanomedicines, Laboratory of General Biochemistry and Physical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ghent University, Harelbekestraat 72, 9000 Ghent, Belgium, Tel: +32 9 264 80 76; Fax: +32 9 264 81 89.
Small. 2013 Dec 9;9(23):4027-35. doi: 10.1002/smll.201300161. Epub 2013 Jun 5.
One of the main problems in cancer treatment is disease relapse through metastatic colonization, which is caused by circulating tumor cells (CTCs). This work reports on liposome-loaded microbubbles targeted to N-cadherin, a cell-cell adhesion molecule expressed by CTCs. It is shown that such microbubbles can indeed bind to N-cadherin at the surface of HMB2 cells. Interestingly, in a mixture of cells with and without N-cadherin expression, binding of the liposome-loaded microbubbles mainly occurs to the N-cadherin-expressing cells. Importantly, applying ultrasound results in the intracellular delivery of a model drug (loaded in the liposomes) in the N-cadherin-expressing cells only. As described in this paper, such liposome-loaded microbubbles may find application as theranostics and in devices aimed for the specific killing of CTCs in blood.
癌症治疗中的主要问题之一是通过转移性定植导致疾病复发，这是由循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）引起的。这项工作报道了载药脂质体微泡靶向 N-钙黏蛋白，N-钙黏蛋白是 CTC 表达的细胞间黏附分子。结果表明，这种微泡确实可以在 HMB2 细胞表面与 N-钙黏蛋白结合。有趣的是，在存在和不存在 N-钙黏蛋白表达的细胞混合物中，载药脂质体微泡的结合主要发生在表达 N-钙黏蛋白的细胞上。重要的是，应用超声只会导致 N-钙黏蛋白表达的细胞内递送载药脂质体中的模型药物。如本文所述，这种载药脂质体微泡可作为治疗药物和设备的应用，以专门杀死血液中的 CTC。
