Use of a Lipid-Coated Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticle Platform for Synergistic Gemcitabine and Paclitaxel Delivery to Human Pancreatic Cancer in Mice

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 9; no. 4; pp. 3540 - 3557
• Main Authors: Meng, Huan, Wang, Meiying, Liu, Huiyu, Liu, Xiangsheng, Situ, Allen, Wu, Bobby, Ji, Zhaoxia, Chang, Chong Hyun, Nel, Andre E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 28.04.2015
• Subjects: Albumins - chemistry; Albumins - pharmacology; Albumins - therapeutic use; Animals; Antineoplastic Agents - chemistry; Antineoplastic Agents - pharmacology; Antineoplastic Agents - therapeutic use; Biocompatibility; Cancer; Cell Line, Tumor; Cell Transformation, Neoplastic; Cytidine Deaminase - metabolism; Deoxycytidine - analogs & derivatives; Deoxycytidine - chemistry; Deoxycytidine - pharmacology; Deoxycytidine - therapeutic use; Drug Carriers - chemistry; Drug Synergism; Drugs; Effectiveness; Female; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic - drug effects; Humans; Lipid Bilayers - chemistry; Lipids; Metabolites; Mice; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Nanostructure; Paclitaxel - chemistry; Paclitaxel - pharmacology; Paclitaxel - therapeutic use; Pancreatic Neoplasms - drug therapy; Pancreatic Neoplasms - metabolism; Pancreatic Neoplasms - pathology; Porosity; Silicon Dioxide - chemistry; Tumors; co-delivery; paclitaxel; pancreatic cancer; synergy; mesoporous silica nanoparticle; ratiometric; gemcitabine
• DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b00510
• ISSN: 1936-0851

Recently, a commercial albumin-bound paclitaxel (PTX) nanocarrier (Abraxane) was approved as the first new drug for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in almost a decade. PTX improves the pharmaceutical efficacy of the first-line pancreatic cancer drug, gemcitabine (GEM), through suppression of the tumor stroma and inhibiting the expression of the GEM-inactivating enzyme, cytidine deaminase (CDA). We asked, therefore, whether it was possible to develop a mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSNP) carrier for pancreatic cancer to co-deliver a synergistic GEM/PTX combination. High drug loading was achieved by a custom-designed coated lipid film technique to encapsulate a calculated dose of GEM (40 wt %) by using a supported lipid bilayer (LB). The uniform coating of the 65 nm nanoparticles by a lipid membrane allowed incorporation of a sublethal amount of hydrophobic PTX, which could be co-delivered with GEM in pancreatic cells and tumors. We demonstrate that ratiometric PTX incorporation and delivery by our LB-MSNP could suppress CDA expression, contemporaneous with induction of oxidative stress as the operating principle for PTX synergy. To demonstrate the in vivo efficacy, mice carrying subcutaneous PANC-1 xenografts received intravenous (IV) injection of PTX/GEM-loaded LB-MSNP. Drug co-delivery provided more effective tumor shrinkage than GEM-loaded LB-MSNP, free GEM, or free GEM plus Abraxane. Comparable tumor shrinkage required coadministration of 12 times the amount of free Abraxane. High-performance liquid chromatography analysis of tumor-associated GEM metabolites confirmed that, compared to free GEM, MSNP co-delivery increased the phosphorylated DNA-interactive GEM metabolite 13-fold and decreased the inactivated and deaminated metabolite 4-fold. IV injection of MSNP-delivered PTX/GEM in a PANC-1 orthotopic model effectively inhibited primary tumor growth and eliminated metastatic foci. The enhanced in vivo efficacy of the dual delivery carrier could be achieved with no evidence of local or systemic toxicity. In summary, we demonstrate the development of an effective LB-MSNP nanocarrier for synergistic PTX/GEM delivery in pancreatic cancer.