Lectin-conjugated pH-responsive mesoporous silica nanoparticles for targeted bone cancer treatment

Abstract

A novel multifunctional nanodevice based in doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) as nanoplatforms for the assembly of different building blocks has been developed for bone cancer treatment. These building blocks consists of: i) a polyacrylic acid (PAA) capping layer grafted to MSNs via an acid-cleavable acetal linker, to minimize premature cargo release and provide the nanosystem of pH-responsive drug delivery ability; and ii) a targeting ligand, the plant lectin concanavalin A (ConA), able to selectively recognize, bind and internalize owing to certain cell-surface glycans, such as sialic acids (SA), overexpressed in given tumor cells. This multifunctional nanosystem exhibits a noticeable higher internalization degree into human osteosarcoma cells (HOS), overexpressing SA, compared to healthy preosteoblast cells (MC3T3-E1). Moreover, the results indicate that small DOX loading (2.5 µg mL^-1) leads to almost 100% of osteosarcoma cell death in comparison with healthy bone cells, which significantly preserve their viability. Besides, this nanodevice has a cytotoxicity on tumor cells 8-fold higher than that caused by the free drug. These findings demonstrate that the synergistic combination of different building blocks into a unique nanoplatform increases antitumor effectiveness and decreases toxicity towards normal cells. This line of attack opens up new insights in targeted bone cancer therapy.

Statement of significance: The development of highly selective and efficient tumor-targeted smart drug delivery nanodevices remains a great challenge in nanomedicine. This work reports the design and optimization of a multifunctional nanosystem based on mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) featuring selectivity towards human osteosarcoma cells and pH-responsive antitumor drug delivery capability. The novelty and originality of this manuscript relies on proving that the synergistic assembly of different building blocks into a unique nanoplatform increases antitumor effectiveness and decreases toxicity towards healthy cells, which constitutes a new paradigm in targeted bone cancer therapy.

Keywords: Antitumor effect; Bone cancer; Lectin; Mesoporous silica nanoparticles; Nanomedicine; Synergistic combination; Targeting; pH-responsive drug release.