Doxorubicin (DOX) is an effective anticancer drug which is widely used in clinical treatment. However, the severe cardiotoxicity limits its use. Thus, it is an urgent need to attenuate the toxicity of DOX without impairing its efficacy. Many studies show that Se may protect normal tissues from damages of some anticancer drugs. Recently, Se@SiO2 nanocomposites emerges as better substitutes for direct element Se in treatment of cancer cells for their ideal biocompatibility. In the present article, we synthesized Se@SiO2 nanocomposites and confirmed their characterization according to previous studies. We accomplished a conjunctive use of Se@SiO2 nanocomposites with DOX then explored the toxicity and efficacy of this combination. In the in vivo experiments, the survival rate of mice with DOX treatment was significantly increased by Se@SiO2. And Se@SiO2 has few interference to the therapeutic effect of DOX. Particularly, Se@SiO2 significantly attenuated DOX-induced myocardial tissue damage (serum index, apoptosis index, western-blot index) and protected mice from reduction in LVEF induced by DOX in mice model. In summary, we concluded that the protective effect of Se@SiO2 in DOX-induced cardiotoxicity was possibly attributable to the inhibition of ROS production, showing great potential of Se@SiO2 nanocomposite in the clinical use of DOX.
Keywords: Doxorubicin; ROS; apoptosis; cancer; cardiotoxicity; nanocomposite; selenium.