癌细胞
基因传递
肽
癌症
基因敲除
体内
癌症研究
毒性
内吞循环
生物
遗传增强
材料科学
细胞
化学
生物化学
基因
内吞作用
有机化学
生物技术
遗传学
作者
Silvia Cirillo,Mhd Anas Tomeh,Robert N. Wilkinson,Chris Hill,Stephen Brown,Xiubo Zhao
标识
DOI:10.1021/acsami.1c14761
摘要
Antimicrobial/anticancer peptides (AMPs/ACPs) have shown promising results as new therapeutic agents in cancer thearpy. Among them, the designed amphiphilic α-helical peptide G(IIKK)3I-NH2 (G3) displayed great affinity and specificity in targeting cancer cells. Here, we report new insights on how G3 penetrates cancer cells. G3 showed high specificity to HCT-116 colon cancer cells compared to the HDFs (human neonatal primary dermal fibroblasts) control. With high concentrations of peptide, a clear cancer cell membrane disruption was observed through SEM. Gene knockdown of the endocytic pathways demonstrated that an energy-dependent endocytic pathway is required for the uptake of the peptide. In addition, G3 can protect and selectively deliver siRNAs into cancer cells and successfully modulated their gene expression. Gene delivery was also tested in 3D cancer spheroids and showed deep penetration delivery into the cancer spheroids. Finally, the in vivo toxicity of G3 was evaluated on zebrafish embryos, showing an increasing toxicity effect with concentration. However, the toxicity of the peptide was attenuated when complexed with siRNA. In addition, negligible toxicity was observed at the concentration range for efficient gene delivery. The current results demonstrate that G3 is promising as an excellent agent for cancer therapy.
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