Xu Jiangsheng, Liu Yunhua, Liu Sheng, Ou Wenquan, White Alisa, Stewart Samantha, Tkaczuk Katherine H R, Ellis Lee M, Wan Jun, Lu Xiongbin, He Xiaoming
Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Department of Pathology & Pathophysiology, and Cancer Institute of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Nano Today. 2022 Apr;43. doi: 10.1016/j.nantod.2022.101406. Epub 2022 Feb 1.
Colon and rectal cancers are the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in the United States and effective targeted therapies are in need for treating them. Our genomic analyses show hemizygous deletion of , an important tumor suppressor gene, is highly frequent in both cancers, and the 5-year survival of patients with the more prevalent colon cancer is significantly reduced in the patients with the cancer harboring such deletion, although such reduction is not observed for rectal cancer. Unfortunately, direct targeting has been unsuccessful for cancer therapy. Interestingly, , a gene essential for cell survival and proliferation, is almost always deleted together with in colon and rectal cancers. Therefore, RNA interference (RNAi) with small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) to precisely target/inhibit may be an effective strategy for selectively killing cancer cells with deficiency. However, the difficulty of delivering siRNAs specifically into the cytosol where they perform their function, is a major barrier for siRNA-based therapies. Here, metformin bicarbonate (MetC) is synthesized to develop pH-responsive MetC-nanoparticles with a unique "bomb" for effective cytosolic delivery of siRNA, which greatly facilitates its endo/lysosomal escape into the cytosol and augments its therapeutic efficacy of cancer harboring deficiency. Moreover, the MetC-based nanoparticles without functional siRNA show notable therapeutic effect with no evident toxicity or immunogenicity.
结肠癌和直肠癌是美国癌症相关死亡的主要原因,因此需要有效的靶向治疗方法来治疗这些癌症。我们的基因组分析表明,重要的肿瘤抑制基因半合子缺失在这两种癌症中都非常常见,在患有这种缺失的结肠癌患者中,更常见的结肠癌患者的5年生存率显著降低,尽管直肠癌患者未观察到这种降低。不幸的是,直接靶向治疗癌症尚未成功。有趣的是,细胞存活和增殖所必需的基因在结肠癌和直肠癌中几乎总是与一起缺失。因此,用小干扰RNA(siRNA)进行RNA干扰(RNAi)以精确靶向/抑制可能是选择性杀死缺乏的癌细胞的有效策略。然而,将siRNA特异性递送到其发挥功能的细胞质中存在困难,这是基于siRNA的治疗的主要障碍。在这里,合成了碳酸氢二甲双胍(MetC),以开发具有独特“炸弹”的pH响应性MetC纳米颗粒,用于将siRNA有效递送到细胞质中,这极大地促进了其从内体/溶酶体逃逸到细胞质中,并增强了其对缺乏的癌症的治疗效果。此外,不含功能性siRNA的基于MetC的纳米颗粒显示出显著的治疗效果,且没有明显的毒性或免疫原性。