Vascular targeted chitosan-derived nanoparticles as docetaxel carriers for gastric cancer therapy

A gastric cancer angiogenesis marker peptide, GX1, is promising to be a desirable ligand for anti-angiogenesis targeted drug of gastric cancer treatment. In this study, GX1 was utilized to fabricate a multifunctional vascular targeting docetaxel (DCT)-loaded nanoparticle with N-deoxycholic acid glycol chitosan (DGC) as the carrier and GX1-PEG-deoxycholic acid (GPD) conjugate as the targeting ligand. The mean size of obtained GX1-DGC-DCT was 150.9 nm with a narrow size distribution and their shape was spherical with smooth surface texture. The in vitro drug release test revealed a sustained release manner and an acid pH could accelerate the release compared with the neutral pH. Furthermore, GX1-DGC-DCT showed stronger cytotoxicity against co-cultured gastric cancer cells and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (co-HUVEC) than DCT within 100 μM. In addition, GX1 efficiently enhanced the cellular uptake of nanoparticles in co-HUVEC cells as confirmed by confocal fluorescence scanning microscopy. Moreover, in vivo delivery of GX1-DGC-DCT was demonstrated to inhibit tumor growth in SGC791 tumor-bearing mice with tumor inhibition rate (TIR) of 67.05% and no weight loss of mice was observed. The anti-tumor effects were further confirmed by H&E and TUNEL analysis. Therefore, this new drug delivery system represents a potential strategy for gastric cancer therapy.