The development of a
drug delivery strategy which can mediate efficient
tumor targeting together with high cellular internalization and extensive vascular extravasation is essential and important for
glioma treatment. To achieve this goal, F3
peptide that specifically bind to
nucleolin, which is highly expressed on the surface of both
glioma cells and endothelial cells of
glioma angiogenic blood vessels, is utilized to decorate a nanoparticulate drug delivery system to realize
glioma cell and neovasculature dual-targeting and efficient cellular internalization.
Tumor homing and penetrating
peptide,
tLyp-1 peptide, which contains the motif of (R/K)XX(R/K) and specially binds to
neuropilin is co-administrated to improve the penetration of the nanoparticles across angiogenic vasculature into
glioma parenchyma. The F3 conjugation via a
maleimide-
thiol coupling reaction was confirmed by XPS analysis with 1.03%
nitrogen detected on the surface of the functionalized nanoparticles. Enhanced cellular interaction with C6 cells, improved penetration in 3D multicell
tumor spheroids, and increased cytotoxicity of the loaded
paclitaxel were achieved by the F3-functionalized nanoparticles (F3-NP). Following co-administration with
tLyp-1 peptide, F3-NP displayed enhanced accumulation at the
tumor site and deep penetration into the
glioma parenchyma and achieved the longest survival in mice bearing intracranial C6
glioma. The findings here clearly indicated that the strategy by co-administrating a
tumor homing and penetrating
peptide with functionalized nanoparticles dual-targeting both
glioma cells and neovasculature could significantly improve the anti-
glioma drug delivery, which also hold a great promise for
chemotherapy of other hard-to-cure
cancers.