Targeting Delivery of Lidocaine and Cisplatin by Nanogel Enhances Chemotherapy and Alleviates Metastasis

Tumor growth inhibition and adverse effect reduction together with metastasis alleviation are still the challenges that need to be overcome in cancer chemotherapy. Combinational therapy provides an alternative solution for these challenges. Nanoparticles are the ideal carriers for combinational therapy due to their versatile drug loading capacities and versatile tumor-targeting strategies. In this study, a cRGDfk modified nanogel system has been utilized to coload lidocaine, a voltage-gated Na⁺ channels inhibitor, and cisplatin, a common anticancer drug to obtain a tumor-targeted dual drugs-loaded nanogel system. The introduction of lidocaine not only promotes the cisplatin-induced apoptosis in vitro and in vivo but also alleviates the metastasis of MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells in the mouse model. Besides, the body weight loss caused by cisplatin has also been relieved, and higher dose with less body weight loss can be achieved, which indicated the adverse effect caused by cisplatin-mediated chemotherapy has been alleviated. Furthermore, the introduction of peptide segment-cRGDfk, which presents high affinity to α_vβ₃ integrin, further increases the enrichment of drug-loaded nanogel in the tumor site. It favors the primary tumor growth inhibition. The results demonstrate the coloading of lidocaine and cisplatin by ligand-modified nanogels is a promising strategy for α_vβ₃ integrin-overexpressing breast cancer combinational therapy.