Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of Turin, 10125 Turin, Italy.
Department of Drug Science and Technology, University of Turin, 10125 Turin, Italy.
Molecules. 2022 Feb 4;27(3):1062. doi: 10.3390/molecules27031062.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary liver cancer and is characterized by poor clinical outcomes, with the majority of patients not being eligible for curative therapy and treatments only being applicable for early-stage tumors. CD44 is a receptor for hyaluronic acid (HA) and is involved in HCC progression. The aim of this work is to propose HA- and PEGylated-liposomes as promising approaches for the treatment of HCC. It has been found, in this work, that CD44 transcripts are up-regulated in HCC patients, as well as in a murine model of NAFLD/NASH-related hepatocarcinogenesis. Cell culture experiments indicate that HA-liposomes are more rapidly and significantly internalized by Huh7 cells that over-express CD44, compared with HepG2 cells that express low levels of the receptor, in which the uptake seems due to endocytic events. By contrast, human and murine macrophage cell lines (THP-1, RAW264.7) show improved and rapid uptake of PEG-modified liposomes without the involvement of the CD44. Moreover, the internalization of PEG-modified liposomes seems to induce polarization of THP1 towards the M1 phenotype. In conclusion, data reported in this study indicate that this strategy can be proposed as an alternative for drug delivery and one that dually and specifically targets liver cancer cells and infiltrating tumor macrophages in order to counteract two crucial aspect of HCC progression.
肝细胞癌(HCC)是最常见的原发性肝癌,其临床预后较差,大多数患者不符合根治性治疗的条件,且治疗方法仅适用于早期肿瘤。CD44 是透明质酸(HA)的受体,参与 HCC 的进展。本工作旨在提出 HA 和聚乙二醇化脂质体作为治疗 HCC 的有前途的方法。在本工作中发现,CD44 转录本在 HCC 患者以及与 NAFLD/NASH 相关的肝癌发生的小鼠模型中上调。细胞培养实验表明,与低表达受体的 HepG2 细胞相比,HA 脂质体被过度表达 CD44 的 Huh7 细胞更快、更显著地内化,在 HepG2 细胞中,摄取似乎是由于内吞作用。相比之下,人源和鼠源巨噬细胞系(THP-1、RAW264.7)在不涉及 CD44 的情况下,对 PEG 修饰的脂质体表现出改善和快速的摄取。此外,PEG 修饰的脂质体的内化似乎诱导 THP1 向 M1 表型极化。总之,本研究报告的数据表明,这种策略可以作为药物递送的一种替代方法,双重且特异性地靶向肝癌细胞和浸润肿瘤巨噬细胞,以对抗 HCC 进展的两个关键方面。