Nano Carriers That Enable Co-Delivery of Chemotherapy and RNAi Agents for Treatment of Drug-Resistant Cancers.

Nano Carriers That Enable Co-Delivery of Chemotherapy and RNAi Agents for Treatment of Drug-Resistant Cancers. Biotechnol Adv. 2014 Jun 9; Authors: Tsouris V, Joo MK, Kim SH, Kwon IC, Won YY Abstract Tumor cells exhibit drug resistant phenotypes that decrease the efficacy of chemotherapeutic treatments. The drug resistance has a genetic basis that is caused by an abnormal gene expression. There are several types of drug resistance: efflux pumps reducing the cellular concentration of the drug, alterations in membrane lipids that reduce cellular uptake, increased or altered drug targets, metabolic alteration of the drug, inhibition of apoptosis, repair of the damaged DNA, and alteration of the cell cycle checkpoints (Gottesman et al. , 2002, Holohan et al. , 2013). siRNA is used to silence the drug resistant phenotype and prevent this drug resistance response. Of the listed types of drug resistance, pump-type resistance (e.g., high expression of ATP-binding cassette transporter proteins such as P-glycoproteins (Pgp; also known as multi-drug resistance protein 1 or MDR1)) and apoptosis inhibition (e.g., expression of anti-apoptotic proteins such as Bcl-2) are the most frequently targeted for gene silencing. The co-delivery of siRNA and chemotherapeutic drugs has a synergistic effect, but many of the current projects do not control the drug release from the nanocarrier. This means the drug payload is released before the drug resistance p...
Source: Biotechnology Advances - Category: Biotechnology Authors: Tags: Biotechnol Adv Source Type: research