Figure 1. Scheme of silica nanorattle-doxorubicin-anchored mesenchymal stem cells for tumor-tropic therapy(Image by TIPC)

The nanoparticulate drug has been proved to be an efficient way to cure cancer. However, the low targeting efficiency represents a huge bottleneck for nanoparticulate drug delivery. In order to achieve breakthrough in this respect, the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (TIPC, CAS) devised a novel cancer targeting strategy.

The new strategy was developed by the research team headed by Dr. TANG Fangqiong from TIPC using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as the targeting vehicle and a silica nanorattle as the drug carrier. A silica nanorattle–doxorubicin drug delivery system was efficiently anchored to MSCs by specific antibody–antigen recognitions at the cytomembrane interface without any cell preconditioning.

It was proved in vivo experiments that the nanoparticles-burdened MSCs can track down tumer cells more efficiently and deliver doxorubicin with wider distribution. Compared with free drug and silica nanorattle-encapsulated DOX, the new strategy shows superior advantages in increased and prolonged intratumoral drug distribution and resulting enhanced tumor cell apoptosis.

The combination of “stem cell targeting” and “controlled drug delivery” has promised to target and kill all of the tumor cells including the primary and metastasis satellites. This robust and effective strategy provides a promising alternative way for efficient cancer targeting and therapy. The main findings have been published in ACS Nano. (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn202399w）

The research has received supports from National High-tech R&D Program of China (863 Program) and National Natural Science Foundation of China.