Background: Breast cancer is an alarming global public health problem and a main cause of cancer-related death in women. Systemic chemotherapy is the most widely used treatment for breast cancer. However, current chemotherapy treatments are far from desirable due to poor targeting specificity, severe side effects and vasculogenic mimicry (VM).
Purpose: Hyaluronic acid (HA)-modified daunorubicin plus honokiol (HNK) cationic liposomes were prepared and characterised for treatment of breast cancer by eliminating VM.
Methods: HA-modified daunorubicin plus HNK cationic liposomes were prepared by a thin-film hydration method. Evaluations were performed on MCF-7 cells and MDA-MB-435S cells, which are human breast cancer cells, and xenografts of MDA-MB-435S cells.
Results: In vitro results revealed that the HA-modified daunorubicin plus HNK cationic liposomes enhanced the cellular uptake and destroyed VM channels. In vivo results demonstrated that the liposomes prolonged the circulation time in the blood, obviously accumulated in the tumour region, and enhanced the overall anticancer effects. Action mechanisms were related to down-regulation of VM protein indicators including FAK, EphA2, MMP-2 and MMP-9.
Conclusions: The prepared HA-modified daunorubicin plus HNK cationic liposomes may serve as a promising therapeutic strategy for the treatment of breast cancer.
Keywords: Daunorubicin; cationic liposomes; honokiol; hyaluronic acid; vasculogenic mimicry.