Plasmonic nanobubble-enhanced endosomal escape processes for selective and guided intracellular delivery of chemotherapy to drug-resistant cancer cells.

Lukianova-Hleb, Ekaterina Y; Belyanin, Andrey; Kashinath, Shruti; Wu, Xiangwei; Lapotko, Dmitri O · Biomaterials · 2012

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Cancer chemotherapies suffer from multi drug resistance, high non-specific toxicity and heterogeneity of tumors. We report a method of plasmonic nanobubble-enhanced endosomal escape (PNBEE) for the selective, fast and guided intracellular delivery of drugs through a self-assembly by cancer cells of separately targeted gold nanoparticles and encapsulated drug (Doxil). The co-localized with Doxil plasmonic nanobubbles optically generated in cancer cells released the drug into the cytoplasm thus increasing the therapeutic efficacy against these drug-resistant cells by 31-fold, reducing drug dose by 20-fold, the treatment time by 3-fold and the non-specific toxicity by 10-fold compared to standard treatment. Thus the PNBEE mechanism provided selective, safe and efficient intracellular drug delivery in heterogeneous environment opening new opportunities for drug therapies.

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