The combined therapeutic effects of 131iodine-labeled multifunctional copper sulfide-loaded microspheres in treating breast cancer

Qiufang Liu; Yuyi Qian; Panli Li; Sihang Zhang; Zerong Wang; Jianjun Liu; Xiaoguang Sun; Michael Fulham; Dagan Feng; Zhigang Chen; Shaoli Song; Wei Lu; Gang Huang

doi:10.1016/j.apsb.2018.04.001

The combined therapeutic effects of ¹³¹iodine-labeled multifunctional copper sulfide-loaded microspheres in treating breast cancer

Acta Pharm Sin B. 2018 May;8(3):371-380. doi: 10.1016/j.apsb.2018.04.001. Epub 2018 Apr 7.

Authors

Qiufang Liu^{1

2

3}, Yuyi Qian⁴, Panli Li^{1

2

3}, Sihang Zhang⁴, Zerong Wang⁵, Jianjun Liu^{1

3}, Xiaoguang Sun^{1

3}, Michael Fulham^{2

6

7}, Dagan Feng^{2

7}, Zhigang Chen⁸, Shaoli Song^{1

2

3}, Wei Lu^{4

9}, Gang Huang^{1

2

10

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.
² SJTU-USYD Joint Research Alliance for Translational Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.
³ Institute of Clinical Nuclear Medicine, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.
⁴ Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Key Laboratory of Smart Drug Delivery, Ministry of Education & State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Fudan University, Shanghai 201203, China.
⁵ Shanghai Gezhi Middle School, Shanghai 200001, China.
⁶ Department of Molecular Imaging, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Australia and Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2050, Australia.
⁷ Biomedical and Multimedia Information Technology Research Group, School of Information Technologies, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia.
⁸ Centre for Future Materials, University of Southern Queensland, Springfield QLD 4300, Australia.
⁹ Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, RI 02881, USA.
¹⁰ Shanghai Key Laboratory for Molecular Imaging, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai 201318, China.

Abstract

Compared to conventional cancer treatment, combination therapy based on well-designed nanoscale platforms may offer an opportunity to eliminate tumors and reduce recurrence and metastasis. In this study, we prepared multifunctional microspheres loading ¹³¹I-labeled hollow copper sulfide nanoparticles and paclitaxel (¹³¹I-HCuSNPs-MS-PTX) for imaging and therapeutics of W256/B breast tumors in rats. ¹⁸F-fluordeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging detected that the expansion of the tumor volume was delayed (P<0.05) following intra-tumoral (i.t.) injection with ¹³¹I-HCuSNPs-MS-PTX plus near-infrared (NIR) irradiation. The immunohistochemical analysis further confirmed the anti-tumor effect. The single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/photoacoustic imaging mediated by ¹³¹I-HCuSNPs-MS-PTX demonstrated that microspheres were mainly distributed in the tumors with a relatively low distribution in other organs. Our results revealed that ¹³¹I-HCuSNPs-MS-PTX offered combined photothermal, chemo- and radio-therapies, eliminating tumors at a relatively low dose, as well as allowing SPECT/CT and photoacoustic imaging monitoring of distribution of the injected agents non-invasively. The copper sulfide-loaded microspheres, ¹³¹I-HCuSNPs-MS-PTX, can serve as a versatile theranostic agent in an orthotopic breast cancer model.

Keywords: Combination therapy; Microspheres; Photoacoustic imaging; Single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT); Theranostics.