Vitamin-B12-conjugated PLGA-PEG nanoparticles incorporating miR-532-3p induce mitochondrial damage by targeting apoptosis repressor with caspase recruitment domain (ARC) on CD320-overexpressed gastric cancer.

Among various methods, the use of targeting nucleic acid therapy is a promising method for inhibiting gastric cancer (GC) cells' rapid growth and metastasis abilities. In this study, vitamin B12-labeled poly (d,l-lactide-co-glycolide) and polyethylene glycol nanoparticles (PLGA-PEG-VB12 NPs) were developed for microRNAs-532-3p mimics incorporating as targeting gene delivery systems (miR-532-3p@PLGA-PEG-VB12 NPs) to fight against transcobalamin II (CD320)-overexpressed GC cells' progression. The PLGA-PEG-VB12 NPs with appropriate particle sizes and good bio-compatibility could be selectively delivered into CD320-overexpressed GC cells, and significantly decrease the expression of apoptosis repressor with caspase recruitment domain (ARC). Following that, more pro-apoptotic protein (Bax) flowed from cytoplasm into mitochondria to form Bax oligomerization, thus induced mitochondrial damage, including mitochondrial membrane potentials (MMPs) loss and excessive production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mitoROS). Since that, mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) was opened, followed by induced more cytochrome c (Cyto C) releasing from mitochondria into cytosol, and finally activated caspase-depended cell apoptosis pathway. Therefore, our designed miR-532-3p@PLGA-PEG-VB12 NPs showed enhanced GC targeting ability, and could induce apoptosis through activating ARC/Bax/mitochondria-mediated apoptosis signaling pathway, finally remarkably suppressed proliferation of GC cells both in vitro and in vivo, which presented a promising treatment for GC.