Facile construction of drugs loaded lipid-coated calcium carbonate as a promising pH-Dependent drug delivery system for thyroid cancer treatment

Qianqian Cheng; Guangxuan Liu; Xiaojing Yin

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18413

Facile construction of drugs loaded lipid-coated calcium carbonate as a promising pH-Dependent drug delivery system for thyroid cancer treatment

Heliyon. 2023 Jul 19;9(9):e18413. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18413. eCollection 2023 Sep.

Authors

Qianqian Cheng¹, Guangxuan Liu¹, Xiaojing Yin¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Medicine, Cancer Hospital of China Medical University, Liaoning Cancer Hospital, and Institute, Shenyang-110042, China.

Abstract

To develop innovative drug delivery carriers for controllable release and cancer-targeted delivery of therapeutic agents to accomplish efficient cancer chemotherapy. Herein we effectively fabricated CaCO₃ primarily loaded biotin (BT) and directly the self-assembly of oxaliplatin (Pt (IV)) prodrugs form in liposomes. The acquired BT-Pt (IV)@PEG/CaCO₃ with outstanding biological stability displays rapid pH-mediated degradations, thus allowing the effective pH-responsive delivery of BT. In vitro, anticancer assays proved that BT-Pt (IV)@PEG/CaCO₃ effectively kills the thyroid cancer cells (B-CPAP and FTC-133). The biochemical staining assays investigated the morphological changes of thyroid cancer after treatment with nanoparticles. The DNA fragmentation of the cells was assessed by utilizing the comet assay. BT-Pt (IV)@PEG/CaCO₃ increased ROS levels and caused mitochondrial membrane potential and DNA damage, which resulted in apoptosis. Due to its versatile drug-loading capability, this research demonstrates that CaCO₃ liposomal formulation is a biocompatible and reliable substrate for establishing pH-mediated drug delivery methods and promising for possible therapeutic application.

Keywords: Anticancer drugs; Apoptosis; CaCO3; Combination therapy; DNA damage; Thyroid cancer.