Development of various nanoscale
drug carriers for enhanced antitumor
therapy still remains a great challenge. In this study,
laponite (LAP) nanodisks encapsulated with anticancer
drug doxorubicin (DOX) at an exceptionally high loading efficiency (98.3 ± 0.77%) were used for
tumor therapy applications. The long-term in vivo antitumor efficacy and toxicology of the prepared LAP/DOX complexes were analyzed using a
tumor-bearing mouse model. Long-term
tumor appearance, normalized
tumor volume, CD31 staining, and
hematoxylin and
eosin (H&E)-stained
tumor sections were used to evaluate the
tumor therapy efficacy, while long-term animal
body weight changes and H&E-stained tissue sections of different major organs were used to evaluate the toxicology of LAP/DOX complexes. Finally, the in vivo biodistribution of
magnesium ions and DOX in different organs was analyzed. We showed that under the same DOX concentration, LAP/DOX complexes displayed enhanced
tumor inhibition efficacy and afforded the treated mice with dramatically prolonged survival time. In vivo biodistribution data revealed that the reticuloendothelial systems (especially liver) had significantly higher
magnesium uptake than other major organs, and the LAP carrier was able to be cleared out of the body at 45 days post treatment. Furthermore, LAP/DOX afforded a higher DOX uptake in the
tumor region than free DOX, presumably due to the known enhanced permeability and retention effect. The developed LAP-based drug delivery system with an exceptionally high DOX payload, enhanced in vivo antitumor efficacy, and low systemic toxicity may be used as a promising platform for enhanced
tumor therapy.