Dual drug-loaded tumor-targeted polymeric nanoparticles for enhancing therapeutic response in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal disease where standard-of-care chemotherapeutic drugs have limited efficacy due to the development of drug resistance and poor drug delivery caused by a highly desmoplastic tumor microenvironment. Combining multiple drugs in a tumor-targeting carrier would be a favorable approach to overcome these limitations. Hence, a tumor-targeted peptide (TTP) conjugated amphiphilic tri-block copolymer was developed to make targeted polymer nanoparticles (TTP-PNPs) serving as a vehicle for carrying gemcitabine (Gem), paclitaxel (PTX), and their combination (Gem + PTX). The TTP-PNPs in the form of empty polymer (P), single drug-loaded [P(Gem) and P(PTX)], and dual drug-loaded [P(Gem + PTX)] polymer nanoformulations exhibited stable and homogenous spherical shapes with 110-160 nm size. These nanoformulations demonstrated excellent stability under in vitro physiological conditions and led to an efficient release of the drugs in the presence of reduced glutathione (GSH). The efficacy of these nanoparticles was thoroughly evaluated in vitro and in vivo, demonstrating a notable capacity to selectively target and restrict PDAC cells (PANC-1 and KPC) growth. The cellular uptake and biodistribution study showed a significantly higher tumor-targeting ability of TTP-PNPs than PNPs without TTP. Notably, P(Gem + PTX) exhibited the lowest IC50 compared to all other controls and showed heightened synergistic effects in both cell lines. Furthermore, P(Gem + PTX) showed a significantly better tumor reduction and median overall survival in mouse models than single drug-loaded TTP-PNPs or a combination of free drugs (Gem + PTX). In summary, our TTP-PNP system shows great promise as a novel platform for delivering Gem + PTX specifically to pancreatic cancer (PC), maximizing the therapeutic benefits with lower concentrations of the drugs and potentially reducing toxic side effects.

Targeting mTOR and survivin concurrently potentiates radiation therapy in renal cell carcinoma by suppressing DNA damage repair and amplifying mitotic catastrophe.

BACKGROUND: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) was historically considered to be less responsive to radiation therapy (RT) compared to other cancer indications. However, advancements in precision high-dose radiation delivery through single-fraction and multi-fraction stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) have led to better outcomes and reduced treatment-related toxicities, sparking renewed interest in using RT to treat RCC. Moreover, numerous studies have revealed that certain therapeutic agents including chemotherapies can increase the sensitivity of tumors to RT, leading to a growing interest in combining these treatments. Here, we developed a rational combination of two radiosensitizers in a tumor-targeted liposomal formulation for augmenting RT in RCC. The objective of this study is to assess the efficacy of a tumor-targeted liposomal formulation combining the mTOR inhibitor everolimus (E) with the survivin inhibitor YM155 (Y) in enhancing the sensitivity of RCC tumors to radiation. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We slightly modified our previously published tumor-targeted liposomal formulation to develop a rational combination of E and Y in a single liposomal formulation (EY-L) and assessed its efficacy in RCC cell lines in vitro and in RCC tumors in vivo. We further investigated how well EY-L sensitizes RCC cell lines and tumors toward radiation and explored the underlying mechanism of radiosensitization. RESULTS: EY-L outperformed the corresponding single drug-loaded formulations E-L and Y-L in terms of containing primary tumor growth and improving survival in an immunocompetent syngeneic mouse model of RCC. EY-L also exhibited significantly higher sensitization of RCC cells towards radiation in vitro than E-L and Y-L. Additionally, EY-L sensitized RCC tumors towards radiation therapy in xenograft and murine RCC models. EY-L mediated induction of mitotic catastrophe via downregulation of multiple cell cycle checkpoints and DNA damage repair pathways could be responsible for the augmentation of radiation therapy. CONCLUSION: Taken together, our study demonstrated the efficacy of a strategic combination therapy in sensitizing RCC to radiation therapy via inhibition of DNA damage repair and a substantial increase in mitotic catastrophe. This combination therapy may find its use in the augmentation of radiation therapy during the treatment of RCC patients.

Conditional, Tissue-Specific CRISPR/Cas9 Vector System in Zebrafish Reveals the Role of Nrp1b in Heart Regeneration.

BACKGROUND: CRISPR/Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat-associated 9) technology-mediated genome editing has significantly improved the targeted inactivation of genes in vitro and in vivo in many organisms. Neuropilins play crucial roles in zebrafish heart regeneration, heart failure in mice, and electrical remodeling after myocardial infarction in rats. But the cell-specific functions of nrp1 have not been described before. In this study, we have investigated the role of nrp1 isoforms, including nrp1a and nrp1b, in cardiomyocytes during cardiac injury and regeneration in adult zebrafish hearts. METHODS: In this study, we have reported a novel CRISPR-based vector system for conditional tissue-specific gene ablation in zebrafish. Specifically, the cardiac-specific cmlc2 promoter drives Cas9 expression to silence the nrp1 gene in cardiomyocytes in a heat-shock inducible manner. This vector system establishes a unique tool to regulate the gene knockout in both the developmental and adult stages and hence widens the possibility of loss-of-function studies in zebrafish at different stages of development and adulthood. Using this approach, we investigated the role of neuropilin isoforms nrp1a and nrp1b in response to cardiac injury and regeneration in adult zebrafish hearts. RESULTS: We observed that both the isoforms (nrp1a and nrp1b) are upregulated after the cryoinjury. Interestingly, the nrp1b knockout significantly delayed heart regeneration and impaired cardiac function in the adult zebrafish after cryoinjury, demonstrated by reduced heart rate, ejection fractions, and fractional shortening. In addition, we show that the knockdown of nrp1b but not nrp1a induces activation of the cardiac remodeling genes in response to cryoinjury. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, this study is novel where we have reported a heat-shock-mediated conditional knockdown of nrp1a and nrp1b isoforms using CRISPR/Cas9 technology in the cardiomyocyte in zebrafish and furthermore have identified a crucial role for the nrp1b isoform in zebrafish cardiac remodeling and eventually heart function in response to injury.

Role of PLEXIND1/TGFß Signaling Axis in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Progression Correlates with the Mutational Status of KRAS.

PLEXIND1 is upregulated in several cancers, including pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). It is an established mediator of semaphorin signaling, and neuropilins are its known coreceptors. Herein, we report data to support the proposal that PLEXIND1 acts as a transforming growth factor beta (TGFß) coreceptor, modulating cell growth through SMAD3 signaling. Our findings demonstrate that PLEXIND1 plays a pro-tumorigenic role in PDAC cells with oncogenic KRAS (KRASmut). We show in KRASmut PDAC cell lines (PANC-1, AsPC-1,4535) PLEXIND1 downregulation results in decreased cell viability (in vitro) and reduced tumor growth (in vivo). Conversely, PLEXIND1 acts as a tumor suppressor in the PDAC cell line (BxPC-3) with wild-type KRAS (KRASwt), as its reduced expression results in higher cell viability (in-vitro) and tumor growth (in vivo). Additionally, we demonstrate that PLEXIND1-mediated interactions can be selectively disrupted using a peptide based on its C-terminal sequence (a PDZ domain-binding motif), an outcome that may possess significant therapeutic implications. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that (1) PLEXIND1 acts as a TGFß coreceptor and mediates SMAD3 signaling, and (2) differential roles of PLEXIND1 in PDAC cell lines correlate with KRASmut and KRASwt status.

Targeted Dual Intervention-Oriented Drug-Encapsulated (DIODE) Nanoformulations for Improved Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer.

Despite recent advancements, effective treatment for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has remained elusive. The overall survival rate in PDAC patients has been dismally low due to resistance to standard therapies. In fact, the failure of monotherapies to provide long-term survival benefits in patients led to ascension of several combination therapies for PDAC treatment. However, these combination therapies provided modest survival improvements while increasing treatment-related adverse side effects. Hence, recent developments in drug delivery methods hold the potential for enhancing therapeutic benefits by offering cocktail drug loading and minimizing chemotherapy-associated side effects. Nanoformulations-aided deliveries of anticancer agents have been a success in recent years. Yet, improving the tumor-targeted delivery of drugs to PDAC remains a major hurdle. In the present paper, we developed several new tumor-targeted dual intervention-oriented drug-encapsulated (DIODE) liposomes. We successfully formulated liposomes loaded with gemcitabine (G), paclitaxel (P), erlotinib (E), XL-184 (c-Met inhibitor, X), and their combinations (GP, GE, and GX) and evaluated their in vitro and in vivo efficacies. Our novel DIODE liposomal formulations improved median survival in comparison with gemcitabine-loaded liposomes or vehicle. Our findings are suggestive of the importance of the targeted delivery for combination therapies in improving pancreatic cancer treatment.

Synchronous inhibition of mTOR and VEGF/NRP1 axis impedes tumor growth and metastasis in renal cancer.

Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is known for its highly vascular phenotype which is associated with elevated expression of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF), also known as vascular permeability factor (VPF). Accordingly, VEGF has been an attractive target for antiangiogenic therapies in ccRCC. Two major strategies have hitherto been utilized for VEGF-targeted antiangiogenic therapies: targeting VEGF by antibodies, ligand traps or aptamers, and targeting the VEGF receptor signaling via antibodies or small-molecule tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (TKIs). In the present article we utilized two entirely different approaches: targeting mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway that is known to be involved in VEGF synthesis, and disruption of VEGF/Neuroplin-1 (NRP1) axis that is known to activate proangiogenic and pro-tumorigenic signaling in endothelial and tumor cells, respectively. Everolimus (E) and a small-molecule inhibitor EG00229 (G) were used for the inhibition of mTOR and the disruption of VEGF/NRP1 axis, respectively. We also exploited a liposomal formulation decorated with a proprietary tumor-targeting-peptide (TTP) to simultaneously deliver these two agents in a tumor-targeted manner. The TTP-liposomes encapsulating both Everolimus and EG00229 (EG-L) demonstrated higher in vitro and in vivo growth retardation than the single drug-loaded liposomes (E-L and G-L) in two different ccRCC models and led to a noticeable reduction in lung metastasis in vivo. In addition, EG-L displayed remarkable inhibition of tumor growth in a highly aggressive syngeneic immune-competent mouse model of ccRCC developed in Balb/c mice. Taken together, this study demonstrates an effective approach to achieve improved therapeutic outcome in ccRCC.

Development of multi-drug loaded PEGylated nanodiamonds to inhibit tumor growth and metastasis in genetically engineered mouse models of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating disease. Nanomedicine, however, offers new opportunities to facilitate drug delivery in PDAC. Our previous work has shown that poly(ethylene glycol)-functionalized nanodiamond (ND) mediated drug delivery offered a considerable improvement over free drug in PDAC. Inspired by this result and guided by molecular simulations, we opted for simultaneous loading of irinotecan and curcumin in ultra-small PEGylated NDs (ND-IRT + CUR). We observed that ND-IRT + CUR was more efficacious in killing AsPC-1 and PANC-1 cells than NDs with single drugs. Using NDs functionalized with a near-infrared (NIR) dye, we demonstrated the preferential localization of the NDs in tumors and metastatic lesions. We further demonstrate that ND-IRT + CUR is capable of producing pronounced anti-tumor effects in two different clinically relevant, immune-competent genetic models of PDAC. Cytokine profiling indicated that NDs with or without drugs downregulated the expression of IL-10, a key modulator of the tumor microenvironment. Thus, using a combination of in silico, in vitro, and in vivo approaches, we show for the first time the remarkable anti-tumor efficacy of PEGylated NDs carrying a dual payload of irinotecan plus curcumin. These results highlight the potential use of such nano-carriers in the treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer.

Design and Evaluation of PEGylated Liposomal Formulation of a Novel Multikinase Inhibitor for Enhanced Chemosensitivity and Inhibition of Metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has one of the highest mortality rates among cancers. Chemotherapy is the standard first-line treatment, but only modest survival benefits are observed. With the advent of targeted therapies, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) has been acknowledged as a prospective target in PDAC since it is overexpressed in up to 60% of cases. Similarly, the tyrosine-protein kinase Met (cMET) is also overexpressed in PDAC (27-60%) and is a prognostic marker for poor survival. Interestingly, EGFR and cMET share some common signaling pathways including PI3K/Akt and MAPK pathways. Small molecule inhibitors or bispecific antibodies that can target both EGFR and cMET are therefore emerging as novel options for cancer therapy. We previously developed a dual EGFR and cMET inhibitor (N19) that was able to inhibit tumor growth in nonsmall cell lung cancer models resistant to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). Here, we report the development of a novel liposomal formulation of N19 (LN19) and showed significant growth inhibition and increased sensitivity toward gemcitabine in the pancreatic adenocarcinoma orthotopic xenograft model. Taken together, our results suggest that LN19 can be valued as an effective combination therapy with conventional chemotherapy such as gemcitabine for PDAC patients.

Co-delivery of everolimus and vinorelbine via a tumor-targeted liposomal formulation inhibits tumor growth and metastasis in RCC.

BACKGROUND: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is notorious for its resistance towards chemotherapy and radiation therapy in general. Combination therapy is often helpful in alleviating the resistance mechanisms by targeting multiple signaling pathways but is usually more toxic than monotherapy. Co-encapsulation of multiple therapeutic agents in a tumor-targeted drug delivery platform is a promising strategy to mitigate these limitations. METHODS: A tumor-targeted liposomal formulation was prepared using phospholipids, cholesterol, DSPE-(PEG)2000-OMe and a proprietary tumor-targeting-peptide (TTP)-conjugated lipopeptide. An efficient method was optimized to encapsulate everolimus and vinorelbine in this liposomal formulation. Single drug-loaded liposomes were also prepared for comparison. Finally, the drug-loaded liposomes were tested in vitro and in vivo in two different RCC cell lines. RESULTS: The tumor-targeted liposomal formulation demonstrated excellent tumor-specific uptake. The dual drug-loaded liposomes exhibited significantly higher growth inhibition in vitro compared to the single drug-loaded liposomes in two different RCC cell lines. Similarly, the dual drug-loaded liposomes demonstrated significantly higher suppression of tumor growth compared to the single drug-loaded liposomes in two different subcutaneous RCC xenografts. In addition, the dual drug-loaded liposomes instigated significant reduction in lung metastasis in those experiments. CONCLUSION: Taken together, this study demonstrates that co-delivery of everolimus and vinorelbine with a tumor-targeted liposomal formulation is an effective approach to achieve improved therapeutic outcome in RCC.

Multifaceted peptide assisted one-pot synthesis of gold nanoparticles for plectin-1 targeted gemcitabine delivery in pancreatic cancer.

An astute modification of the plectin-1-targeting peptide KTLLPTP by introducing a C-terminal cysteine preceded by a tyrosine residue imparted a reducing property to the peptide. This novel property is then exploited to fabricate gold nanoparticles (GNP) via an in situ reduction of gold(iii) chloride in a one-pot, green synthesis. The modified peptide KTLLPTPYC also acts as a template to generate highly monodispersed, spherical GNPs with a narrow size distribution and improved stability. Plectin-1 is known to be aberrantly expressed in the surface of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells while showing cytoplasmic expression in normal cells. The synthesized GNPs are thus in situ surface modified with the peptides via the cysteine residue leaving the N-terminal KTLLPTP sequence free for targeting plectin-1. The visual molecular dynamics based simulations support the experimental observations like particle size, gemcitabine conjugation and architecture of the peptide-grafted nanoassembly. Additionally, GNPs conjugated to gemcitabine demonstrate significantly higher cytotoxicity in vitro in two established PDAC cell lines (AsPC-1 and PANC-1) and an admirable in vivo antitumor efficacy in a PANC-1 orthotopic xenograft model through selective uptake in PDAC tumor tissues. Altogether, this strategy represents a unique method for the fabrication of a GNP based targeted drug delivery platform using a multifaceted peptide that acts as reducing agent, template for GNP synthesis and targeting agent to display remarkable selectivity towards PDAC.

Glucocorticoid Receptor-Targeted Liposomal Codelivery of Lipophilic Drug and Anti-Hsp90 Gene: Strategy to Induce Drug-Sensitivity, EMT-Reversal, and Reduced Malignancy in Aggressive Tumors.

Many cancers including the late stage ones become drug-resistant and undergo epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). These lead to enhanced invasion, migration, and metastasis toward manifesting its aggressiveness and malignancy. One of the key hallmarks of cancer is its overdependence on glycolysis as its preferred energy metabolism pathway. The strict avoidance of alternate energy pathway gluconeogenesis by cancer cells points to a yet-to-be hoisted role of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) especially in tumor microenvironment, where cells are known to become drug-sensitive through induction of gluconeogenesis. However, since GR is involved in metabolism, anti-inflammatory reactions, immunity besides inducing gluconeogenesis, a greater role of GR in tumor microenvironment is envisaged. We have shown previously that GR, although ubiquitously expressed in all cells; afford to be an effective cytoplasmic target for killing cancer cells selectively. Herein, we report the therapeutic use of a newly developed GR-targeted liposomal concoction (DXE) coformulating a lipophilic drug (ESC8) and an anti-Hsp90 anticancer gene against aggressive tumor models. This induced drug-sensitivity and apoptosis while reversing EMT in tumor cells toward effective retardation of aggressive growth in pancreas and skin tumor models. Additionally, the ESC8-free lipid formulation upon cotreatment with hydrophilic drugs, gemcitabine and doxorubicin, could effectively sensitize and kill pancreatic cancer and melanoma cells, respectively. The formulation-triggered EMT-reversal was GR-dependent. Overall, we found a new strategy for drug sensitization that led to the advent of new GR-targeted anticancer therapeutics.