Artemisinin co-delivery system based on manganese oxide for precise diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer

Abstract Tumor microenvironment (TME) responsive intelligent system can realize the specific release and uniform distribution of chemotherapy drugs in tumor tissues, to achieve high-efficiency and low-toxic treatment of tumors. In this paper, drug delivery system TKD@RBCm-Mn 2 O 3 -ART with the above characteristics was constructed. We synthesized hollow mesoporous manganese trioxide (Mn 2 O 3 ) nanoparticles and firstly found that they owned time-dependent size transformation feature in simulated TME. The particle size decreased from 318 nm to 50 nm and 6 nm at 1 h and 4 h in simulated TME, respectively. Then artemisinin (ART) was loaded into Mn 2 O 3 to realize the co-delivery of Mn 2+ and ART. The modification of homologous red cell membrane (RBCm) and TKD peptide was aimed at long circulation and tumor targeting in the body. In vitro results demonstrated that in the presence of GSH, the cumulative drug release percentage could achieve 97.5%. Meanwhile, Mn 2 O 3 exhibited a good imaging capability in tumor, with the relaxation rate of 6.3113 mM −1 s −1 . After entering into MCF-7 cells, TKD@RBCm-Mn 2 O 3 /ART synchronously released Mn 2+ and ART to generate large amount of ROS and induce DNA damage. In vivo results proved TKD@RBCm-Mn 2 O 3 /ART could arrive the deep area of solid tumors and achieve accurate diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.