Amphiphilic hydroxyethyl starch-based nanoparticles carrying linoleic acid modified berberine inhibit the expression of kras oncogene in zebrafish.

Cancer is one of the most lethal diseases all over the world. Despite that many drugs have been developed for cancer therapy, they still suffer from various limitations including poor treating efficacy, toxicity to normal human cells, and the emergence of multidrug resistance. In this study, the amphiphilic LHES polymers were prepared using hydroxyethyl starch (HES) and linoleic acid as starting materials. The content and substitution degree of linoleic acid groups in LHES polymers were analyzed. The LHES polymers were used for fabricating LHES-B nanoparticles carrying a linoleic acid modified berberine derivative (L-BBR). The LHES-B nanoparticles showed high drug loading efficiency (29%) and could quickly release L-BBR under acidic pH condition (pH = 4.5). Biological investigations revealed that LHES-B nanoparticles significantly inhibited the proliferation of HepG2 cells and exhibited higher cytotoxicity than L-BBR. In a transgenic Tg(fabp10:rtTA2s-M2; TRE2:EGFP-kras) zebrafish model, LHES-B nanoparticles obviously inhibited the expression of kras oncogene. These results indicated that LHES carriers could improve the anticancer activity of L-BBR, and the synthesized LHES-B nanoparticles showed great potential as anticancer drug.