Gold Nanorods Functionalized with Cathepsin B Targeting Peptide and Doxorubicin for Combinatorial Therapy against Multidrug Resistance

Multidrug resistance (MDR) and adverse effects of chemotherapeutic agents are severe issues in clinical cancer treatment. Due to the dysregulation of enzymes in the cancer cells, enzyme-responsive drug delivery systems (DDSs) have been considered as a viable technology for cancer chemotherapy. In the present work, doxorubicin (DOX) is visible after leaving from AuNR-LAX. After treatment with AuNR-LAX, the drug resistance index of DOX-resistant MCF-7/ADR cells was reduced from extremely high 955.0 to 1.7, implying high potential of AuNR-LAX in the MDR phenotype cancer treatment. In addition, the cellular viability of both MCF-7 and MCF-7/ADR cells decreased from 50% to 80% after treatment with AuNR-LAX along (equivalent DOX concentration = 2.3 μg/mL, Au concentration = 30 μg/mL) to below 10% after AuNR-LAX treatment plus radiation of 808 nm, due to the NIR photothermal effect of AuNRs. Human bronchial epithelial cell line 16HBE was chosen to evaluate the adverse effect of AuNR-LAX on the normal cells. At the low concentration, the cytotoxicity of LAX and AuNR-LAX is comparable for breast cancer cell MCF-7 and normal cell 16HBE. It is noted that, at high concentration (with equivalent DOX concentration = 13.1 μg/mL, Au concentration = 167.7 μg/mL), the cellular viability of 16HBE cells is over 50%, whereas that of MCF-7 cancer cells is close to 0, implying the potential of AuNR-LAX in reducing the adverse effects of DOX against normal cells/tissues. Overall, AuNR-LAX showed high potential in overcoming MDR and alleviating adverse effect on normal cells.