Nano Today
Nano Today
5 years ago

Peptide nanoparticle with pH-sensing cargo solubility enhances cancer drug efficiency

Peptide nanoparticle with pH-sensing cargo solubility enhances cancer drug efficiency
We report a class of 17-amino-acid peptides that undergo a sharp hydrophobicity transition at pH around 7. Nanoparticles made of such peptides exhibit ultra pH-sensitivity and autonomous drug-eluting properties, which are beneficial for cancer drug delivery. At pH above 7, the peptides bind water-insoluble drug cargo and form a nanoparticle that protects its cargo from serum proteins. Sensing tumor's mildly acidic pH (≤7.0), nanoparticle peptides undergo a hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic transition and release drug molecules in the interstitial fluid as the nanoparticle migrates down the pH gradient in the tumor. When this pH-sensing and drug-eluting nanoparticle formulation was used to deliver two drugs, lonidamine inhibiting tumor bioenergetics and bis-2-(5-phenylacetamido-1,2,4-thiadiazol-2-yl)ethyl sulfide (BPTES) targeting cancer glutamine metabolism, to triple negative human breast cancer xenografts, the nanoparticle drug demonstrated superior efficiency compared to the respective standard formulation.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S1748013216303498

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.