He Huacheng, Altomare Diego, Ozer Ufuk, Xu Hanwen, Creek Kim, Chen Hexin, Xu Peisheng
Department of Drug Discovery and Biomedical Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
Biomater Sci. 2016 Jan;4(1):115-20. doi: 10.1039/c5bm00325c.
Chemotherapy has been adopted for cancer treatment for decades. However, its efficacy and safety are frequently compromised by the multidrug-resistance of cancer cells and the poor cancer cell selectivity of anticancer drugs. Hereby, we report a combination of a pyridine-2-thiol containing polymer and copper which can effectively kill a wide spectrum of cancer cells, including drug resistant cancer cells, while sparing normal cells. The polymer nanoparticle enters cells via an exofacial thiol facilitated route, and releases active pyridine-2-thiol with the help of intracellularly elevated glutathione (GSH). Due to their high GSH level, cancer cells are more vulnerable to the polymer/copper combination. In addition, RNA microarray analysis revealed that the treatment can reverse cancer cells' upregulated oncogenes (CIRBP and STMN1) and downregulated tumor suppressor genes (CDKN1C and GADD45B) to further enhance the selectivity for cancer cells.
几十年来,化疗一直被用于癌症治疗。然而,其疗效和安全性常常受到癌细胞多药耐药性以及抗癌药物对癌细胞选择性差的影响。在此,我们报告了一种含吡啶 - 2 - 硫醇的聚合物与铜的组合,它能有效杀死包括耐药癌细胞在内的多种癌细胞,同时对正常细胞无害。聚合物纳米颗粒通过外表面硫醇促进的途径进入细胞,并在细胞内升高的谷胱甘肽(GSH)的帮助下释放活性吡啶 - 2 - 硫醇。由于癌细胞的谷胱甘肽水平较高,它们更容易受到聚合物/铜组合的影响。此外,RNA微阵列分析表明,该治疗可逆转癌细胞中上调的癌基因(CIRBP和STMN1)和下调的肿瘤抑制基因(CDKN1C和GADD45B),从而进一步增强对癌细胞的选择性。