Attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium with truncated LPS and outer membrane-displayed RGD peptide for cancer therapy

Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic bacteria Salmonella Typhimurium is a candidate agent or delivery vector for cancer therapy. Effective targeted therapies in addition to radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery have been urgently needed as an alternative or supplement. This study expected to further improve the tumor-targeting ability of Salmonella bacteria through genetic modifications. Based on an auxotrophic Salmonella bacterial strain (D2), we constructed Salmonella mutants with altered LPS length to facilitate displaying the RGD4C targeting peptide on the outer membrane surface of Salmonella. The expression of RGD4C peptide in fusion with OmpA was identified by outer membrane protein extraction and WB detection in different mutant strains. However, flow cytometry analysis following immunofluorescence staining demonstrated that the extracellular length of Salmonella LPS did affect the surface display of RGD4C peptide. The strain D2-RGD4C that synthesized intact LPS including lipid A, core oligosaccharides and O antigen polysaccharides could hardly display RGD4C peptide, showing the same fluorescence signal intensity as the strains not expressing RGD4C peptide. Among different strains, D2 ∆rfaJ-RGD4C that synthesized truncated LPS including lipid A and partial core oligosaccharides was capable of displaying RGD4C peptide most efficiently and showed the highest ability to target HUVECs expressing αV integrin and tumor tissue with abundant neovascularization. Animal experiments also demonstrated that this tumor-targeting attenuated Salmonella strain to simultaneously deliver endostatin and TRAIL, two agents with different anti-tumor activities, could significantly inhibit tumor growth and prolong mouse survival. Thus, our studies revealed that Salmonella could be genetically engineered to improve its tumor targeting via the truncation of LPS and surface display of targeting peptides, thereby eliciting superior anti-tumor effects through targeted delivery of drug molecules.