An assembly-inducing PDC enabling the efficient nuclear delivery of nucleic acid for cancer stem-like cell suppression

Nanoscale. 2022 Oct 27;14(41):15384-15392. doi: 10.1039/d2nr02118h.

Abstract

Nucleic acid therapy is attracting great attention in diverse clinical translations because of its therapeutic advantages. As a renowned oligonucleotide therapeutical candidate in the clinical stage, AS1411 has shown outstanding tumor suppressing effects; however, its efficient delivery to the cell nucleus is critical for its anticancer effect. Herein, we identified a multifunctional peptide drug conjugate (PDC) as a safe and efficient carrier to achieve the nuclear delivery of AS1411. This PDC consists of the cell penetration peptide RW9, an HDAC inhibitor warhead (peptide C-terminus), and 5-FU (peptide N-terminus), which can coassemble with AS1411 to form nanospheres. The PDC efficiently delivered AS1411 to the nucleus of several types of cancer cells. Moreover, it reversed the stemness of a cancer stem-like cell line. Significantly, due to the assembly-induced accumulation enhancement and retention, a safe single agent concentration of PDC showed unexpected synergy with AS1411 to augment the cancer cell suppression efficiency, exemplified by the downregulation of the stemness-related proteins and the upregulation of apoptosis-related proteins. Therefore, our work presents a powerful strategy for the nuclear delivery of nucleic acid drugs by leveraging cancer-suppressing PDC as assembly inducers, which provides a powerful combination regimen in treating cancer stem-like cells.

MeSH terms

  • Antineoplastic Agents*
  • Aptamers, Nucleotide*
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Drug Delivery Systems
  • Humans
  • Neoplasms* / drug therapy
  • Neoplasms* / metabolism
  • Nucleic Acids*
  • Oligodeoxyribonucleotides / pharmacology
  • Peptides
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations

Substances

  • Nucleic Acids
  • Pharmaceutical Preparations
  • Oligodeoxyribonucleotides
  • Aptamers, Nucleotide
  • Antineoplastic Agents
  • Peptides