Application of dual targeting drug delivery system for the improvement of anti-glioma efficacy of doxorubicin

Chemotherapy of glioma is always hampered by the unsatisfactory tumor accumulation of drugs, of which the most noticeable obstacle is the limited drug permeability from vessels into tumor inner. In the present study, we developed a novel nanocarrier for the delivery of doxorubicin to brain tumor. Such novel drug delivery system was mainly composed of a tumor homing peptide and DOX-loaded PLA nanoparticles (AP1-NP-DOX). CRKRLDRNC peptide, named as AP1, was a newly glioma affinity peptide which could specifically binds to interleukin-4 receptor (IL-4R), highly expressing on both glioma cells and angiogenesis. Our findings showed that the peptide-functionalized nanoparticles had a high affinity with both tumor cells and vascular endothelial cells. Besides, tumor targeting assay exhibited that AP1 decorated nanoparticles accumulated more in tumor site than the unmodified ones. Moreover, the results of tumor uptake experiments indicated that AP1-NP-DOX might own the ability of blood brain barrier (BBB) penetration. In the anti-glioma study, AP1-NP-DOX exhibited the highest therapeutic effect on tumor-bearing mice compared with the unmodified nanoparticles and free doxorubicin. These results together indicated that AP1-functionalized nanoparticles could represent a promising way to expand the treatment horizons of onco-therapy.