Multi-target tyrosine kinase inhibitor nanoparticle delivery systems for cancer therapy

Multi-target Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (MTKIs) have drawn substantial attention in tumor therapy. MTKIs could inhibit tumor cell proliferation and induce apoptosis by blocking the activity of tyrosine kinase. However, the toxicity and drug resistance of MTKIs severely restrict their further clinical application. The nano pharmaceutical technology based on MTKIs has attracted ever-increasing attention in recent years. Researchers deliver MTKIs through various types of nanocarriers to overcome drug resistance and improve considerably therapeutic efficiency. This review intends to summarize comprehensive applications of MTKIs nanoparticles in malignant tumor treatment. Firstly, the mechanism and toxicity were introduced. Secondly, various nanocarriers for MTKIs delivery were outlined. Thirdly, the combination treatment schemes and drug resistance reversal strategies were emphasized to improve the outcomes of cancer therapy. Finally, conclusions and perspectives were summarized to guide future research.

Sorafenib Repurposing for Ophthalmic Delivery by Lipid Nanoparticles: A Preliminary Study

Uveal melanoma is the second most common melanoma and the most common intraocular malignant tumour of the eye. Among various treatments currently studied, Sorafenib was also proposed as a promising drug, often administered with other compounds in order to avoid resistance mechanisms. Despite its promising cellular activities, the use of Sorafenib by oral administration is limited by its severe side effects and the difficulty to reach the target. The encapsulation into drug delivery systems represents an interesting strategy to overcome these limits. In this study, different lipid nanoparticulate formulations were prepared and compared in order to select the most suitable for the encapsulation of Sorafenib. In particular, two solid lipids (Softisan or Suppocire) at different concentrations were used to produce solid lipid nanoparticles, demonstrating that higher amounts were able to achieve smaller particle sizes, higher homogeneity, and longer physical stability. The selected formulations, which demonstrated to be biocompatible on Statens Seruminstitut Rabbit Cornea cells, were modified to improve their mucoadhesion, evaluating the effect of two monovalent cationic lipids with two lipophilic chains. Sorafenib encapsulation allowed obtaining a sustained and prolonged drug release, thus confirming the potential use of the developed strategy to topically administer Sorafenib in the treatment of uveal melanoma.

Traditional herbal medicine and nanomedicine: Converging disciplines to improve therapeutic efficacy and human health

Traditional herbal medicine (THM), an ancient science, is a gift from nature. For thousands of years, it has helped humans fight diseases and protect life, health, and reproduction. Nanomedicine, a newer discipline has evolved from exploitation of the unique nanoscale morphology and is widely used in diagnosis, imaging, drug delivery, and other biomedical fields. Although THM and nanomedicine differ greatly in time span and discipline dimensions, they are closely related and are even evolving toward integration and convergence. This review begins with the history and latest research progress of THM and nanomedicine, expounding their respective developmental trajectory. It then discusses the overlapping connectivity and relevance of the two fields, including nanoaggregates generated in herbal medicine decoctions, the application of nanotechnology in the delivery and treatment of natural active ingredients, and the influence of physiological regulatory capability of THM on the in vivo fate of nanoparticles. Finally, future development trends, challenges, and research directions are discussed.

Regulation of in vivo delivery of nanomedicines by herbal medicines

Nanomedicines are of increasing scrutiny due to their improved efficacy and/or mitigated side effects. They can be integrated with many other therapeutics to further boost the clinical benefits. Among those, herbal medicines are arousing great interest to be combined with nanomedicines to exert synergistic effects in multifaceted mechanisms. The in vivo performance of nanomedicines which determines the therapeutic efficacy and safety is believed to be heavily influenced by the physio-pathological characters of the body. Activation of multiple immune factors, e.g., complement system, phagocytic cells, lymphocytes, and among many others, can affect the fate of nanomedicines in blood circulation, biodistribution, interaction with single cells and intracellular transport. Immunomodulatory effects and metabolic regulation by herbal medicines have been widely witnessed during the past decades, which alter the physio-pathological conditions and dramatically affect in vivo delivery of nanomedicines. In this review, we summarize recent progress of understanding on the in vivo delivery process of nanomedicines and analyze the major affecting factors that regulate the interaction of nanomedicines with organisms. We discuss the immunomodulatory roles and metabolic regulation by herbal medicines and their effects on in vivo delivery process of nanomedicines, as well as the prospective clinical benefits from the combination of nanomedicines and herbal medicines.

RNA Interference and Nanotechnology: A Promising Alliance for Next Generation Cancer Therapeutics

Cancer is a significant health hazard of the 21st century, and GLOBOCAN predicts increasing cancer incidence in the coming decades. Though several conventional treatment modalities exist, most of them end up causing off-target and debilitating effects, and drug resistance acquisition. Advances in our understanding of tumor molecular biology offer alternative strategies for precise, robust, and potentially less toxic treatment paradigms for circumventing the disease at the cellular and molecular level. Several deregulated molecules associated with tumorigenesis have been developed as targets in RNA interference (RNAi) based cancer therapeutics. RNAi, a post-transcriptional gene regulation mechanism, has significantly gained attention because of its precise multi-targeted gene silencing. Although the RNAi approach is favorable, the direct administration of small oligonucleotides has not been fruitful because of their inherent lower half-lives and instability in the biological systems. Moreover, the lack of an appropriate delivery system to the primary site of the tumor that helps determine the potency of the drug and its reach, has limited the effective medical utilization of these bio-drugs. Nanotechnology, with its unique characteristics of enhanced permeation and better tumor-targeting efficiency, offers promising solutions owing to the various possibilities and amenability for modifications of the nanoparticles to augment cancer therapeutics. Nanoparticles could be made multimodal, by designing and synthesizing multiple desired functionalities, often resulting in unique and potentially applicable biological structures. A small number of Phase I clinical trials with systemically administered siRNA molecules conjugated with nanoparticles have been completed and the results are promising, indicating that, these new combinatorial therapies can successfully and safely be used to inhibit target genes in cancer patients to alleviate some of the disease burden. In this review, we highlight different types of nano-based delivery strategies for engineering Nano-RNAi-based bio drugs. Furthermore, we have highlighted the insights gained from current research that are entering the preclinical evaluation and information about initial clinical developments, shaping the future for next generation cancer therapeutics.

A polymeric nanoformulation improves the bioavailability and efficacy of sorafenib for hepatocellular carcinoma therapy

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Sorafenib (sfb) is widely used in clinics for advanced HCC therapy. However, the therapeutic efficacy of sfb is suboptimal due to its poor water solubility, low bioavailability, and side effects. Here, we employed a clinically safe polymer poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(lactic acid) (PEG-b-PLA) to prepare a nanoparticle (NP)-based sfb formulation (NP-sfb) and tested its antitumor effect in multiple HCC models. NP-sfb could achieve effective drug loading and remain stable under physiological conditions. NP-sfb could be taken up by HepG2, Hepa1-6, and H22 cells and could efficiently inhibit cell proliferation and/or promote cell apoptosis. In vivo studies indicated that NP-sfb showed significantly improved therapeutic efficacy compared with free-sfb at the same dose or even higher doses. Mechanistic studies demonstrated that NP-sfb not only inhibited tumor proliferation and angiogenesis but also stimulated the tumor microenvironment by reducing the infiltration of immunosuppressive myeloid cells and increasing the ratio of cytotoxic T cells. This study demonstrates that the NP-based formulation is a promising strategy to improve the clinical application of sfb.

Progress in Application of Nanotechnology in Sorafenib

Dysregulation of the tyrosine kinase signaling pathway is closely related to tumor development, and tyrosine kinase inhibitors are important targets for potential anticancer strategies. In particular, sorafenib, as a representative drug of multitarget tyrosine kinase inhibitors, has an important clinical status and is widely used for treating various solid tumors and diabetic complications. However, poor aqueous solubility of sorafenib, poor bioavailability of commonly used oral dose forms, poor accumulation at tumor sites, and severe off-target effects that tend to induce intolerable systemic side effects in patients have greatly reduced its therapeutic efficiency and limited its extensive clinical application. To improve the properties of sorafenib, increase the efficiency of clinical treatment, and overcome the increasingly prominent phenomenon of sorafenib resistance, multiple investigations have been conducted. Numerous studies have reported that the properties of nanomaterials, such as small particle size, large specific surface area, high surface activity and high adsorption capacity, make nanotechnology promising for the construction of ideal sorafenib nanodelivery systems to achieve timed and targeted delivery of sorafenib to tumors, prolong the blood circulation time of the drug, improve the utilization efficiency of the drug and reduce systemic toxic side effects. This review summarizes the progress of research applications in nanotechnology related to sorafenib, discusses the current problems, and expresses expectations for the prospect of clinical applications of sorafenib with improved performance.

Current status of sorafenib nanoparticle delivery systems in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer and one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. Advanced HCC displays strong resistance to chemotherapy, and traditional chemotherapy drugs do not achieve satisfactory therapeutic efficacy. Sorafenib is an oral kinase inhibitor that inhibits tumor cell proliferation and angiogenesis and induces cancer cell apoptosis. It also improves the survival rates of patients with advanced liver cancer. However, due to its poor solubility, fast metabolism, and low bioavailability, clinical applications of sorafenib have been substantially restricted. In recent years, various studies have been conducted on the use of nanoparticles to improve drug targeting and therapeutic efficacy in HCC. Moreover, nanoparticles have been extensively explored to improve the therapeutic efficacy of sorafenib, and a variety of nanoparticles, such as polymer, lipid, silica, and metal nanoparticles, have been developed for treating liver cancer. All these new technologies have improved the targeted treatment of HCC by sorafenib and promoted nanomedicines as treatments for HCC. This review provides an overview of hot topics in tumor nanoscience and the latest status of treatments for HCC. It further introduces the current research status of nanoparticle drug delivery systems for treatment of HCC with sorafenib.

PTML Model for Selection of Nanoparticles, Anticancer Drugs, and Vitamins in the Design of Drug-Vitamin Nanoparticle Release Systems for Cancer Cotherapy

Nanosystems are gaining momentum in pharmaceutical sciences because of the wide variety of possibilities for designing these systems to have specific functions. Specifically, studies of new cancer cotherapy drug-vitamin release nanosystems (DVRNs) including anticancer compounds and vitamins or vitamin derivatives have revealed encouraging results. However, the number of possible combinations of design and synthesis conditions is remarkably high. In addition, a large number of anticancer and vitamin derivatives have been already assayed, but a notably less number of cases of DVRNs were assayed as a whole (with the anticancer compound and the vitamin linked to them). Our approach combines with the perturbation theory and machine learning (PTML) model to predict the probability of obtaining an interesting DVRN by changing the anticancer compound and/or the vitamin present in a DVRN that is already tested for other anticancer compounds or vitamins that have not been tested yet as part of a DVRN. In a previous work, we built a linear PTML model useful for the design of these nanosystems. In doing so, we used information fusion (IF) techniques to carry out data enrichment of DVRN data compiled from the literature with the data for preclinical assays of vitamins from the ChEMBL database. The design features of DVRNs and the assay conditions of nanoparticles (NPs) and vitamins were included as multiplicative PT operators (PTOs) to the system, which indicates the importance of these variables. However, the previous work omitted experiments with nonlinear ML techniques and different types of PTOs such as metric-based PTOs. More importantly, the previous work does not consider the structure of the anticancer drug to be included in the new DVRNs. In this work, we are going to accomplish three main objectives (tasks). In the first task, we found a new model, alternative to the one published before, for the rational design of DVRNs using metric-based PTOs. The most accurate PTML model was the artificial neural network model, which showed values of specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy in the range of 90-95% in training and external validation series for more than 130,000 cases (DVRNs vs ChEMBL assays). Furthermore, in the second task, we used IF techniques to carry out data enrichment of our previous data set. In doing so, we constructed a new working data set of >970,000 cases with the data of preclinical assays of DVRNs, vitamins, and anticancer compounds from the ChEMBL database. All these assays have multiple continuous variables or descriptors d_k and categorical variables c_j (conditions of the assays) for drugs (d_ack, c_acj), vitamins (d_vk, c_vj), and NPs (d_nk, c_nj). These data include >20,000 potential anticancer compounds with >270 protein targets (c_ac1), >580 assay cell organisms (c_ac2), and so forth. Furthermore, we include >36,000 assay vitamin derivatives in >6200 types of cells (c_2vit), >120 assay organisms (c_3vit), >60 assay strains (c_4vit), and so forth. The enriched data set also contains >20 types of DVRNs (c_5n) with 9 NP core materials (c_4n), 8 synthesis methods (c_7n), and so forth. We expressed all this information with PTOs and developed a qualitatively new PTML model that incorporates information of the anticancer drugs. This new model presents 96-97% of accuracy for training and external validation subsets. In the last task, we carried out a comparative study of ML and/or PTML models published and described how the models we are presenting cover the gap of knowledge in terms of drug delivery. In conclusion, we present here for the first time a multipurpose PTML model that is able to select NPs, anticancer compounds, and vitamins and their conditions of assay for DVRN design.

Improved Therapeutic Effect of Puerarin-Encapsulated PEG-PLGA Nanoparticle on an In Vitro Cerebral Infarction Model

This study was to explore the therapeutic effect and mechanism of puerarin (PUE) combined with PEGylated nanoparticles on a rat cerebral infarction cell model. In this context, PEG-PLGA/PUE nanoparticles were prepared by the thin-film hydration method, and the toxicity of PEG-PLGA/PUE nanoparticles to brain capillary endothelial cell (BCEC) was detected by MTT. The BCEC/TF cell model was obtained by induction of BCEC cells with TNF-α. The BCEC/TF cell model was identified by immunofluorescence; the protein expression was detected by western blotting; the expression level of miR-424 in cells was measured by RT-qPCR; the targeting relationship between miR-424 and PDCD4 was confirmed by dual-luciferase reporter assay. We found that PEG-PLGA/PUE nanoparticles prepared by the thin-film hydration method had uniform particle size, regular shape, and good stability and were not toxic to cells. The vWF was widely expressed in the cytoplasm in BCECs. The BCEC/TF cell model was obtained after TNF-α treatment, and tissue factor (TF) was widely expressed on the cell membrane of BCEC/TF cells. Furthermore, it was observed that the PEG-PLGA/PUE nanoparticles showed better therapeutic effect on the BCEC/TF cell model than PUE. PEG-PLGA/PUE nanoparticles and PUE inhibited the expression of PDCD4 protein by increasing the expression of miR-424 in BCEC/TF cells. In summary, the therapeutic effect of PEG-PLGA/PUE nanoparticles on the in vitro cell model of cerebral infarction is better than that of PUE. Moreover, PEG-PLGA/PUE inhibits the expression of PDCD4 protein by lowering the expression level of miR-424 in cells, thereby reducing the hazard of cerebral infarction.

Decreasing acute toxicity and suppressing colorectal carcinoma using Sorafenib-loaded nanoparticles

Objective: A polymer-based nanoparticle was constructed to target sorafenib delivery to colorectal carcinoma cells and decrease the side effects of the drug.Methods: Sorafenib-loaded nanoparticles (S-NPs) based on PEG-PLGA were prepared using a double emulsion solvent evaporation method. The properties of S-NPs were evaluated and then their effects on the viability of colorectal cancer cells and normal human cells were assessed. The mechanism of S-NP internalization was explored using cellular uptake assays and in vitro fluorescence confocal imaging. Acute toxicity of sorafenib on its own or within S-NPs was assessed in mice.Results: S-NPs showed high drug loading and entrapment efficiencies, they did not cause extensive hemolysis, and they efficiently inhibited growth of colorectal cancer cell lines and human umbilical vein endothelial cells. S-NPs showed lower acute toxicity than the free drug.Conclusions: Loading sorafenib into nanoparticles can enhance its uptake by colorectal cancer cells and decrease its acute toxicity.

Biointerface engineering nanoplatforms for cancer-targeted drug delivery

Over the past decade, nanoparticle-based therapeutic modalities have become promising strategies in cancer therapy. Selective delivery of anticancer drugs to the lesion sites is critical for elimination of the tumor and an improved prognosis. Innovative design and advanced biointerface engineering have promoted the development of various nanocarriers for optimized drug delivery. Keeping in mind the biological framework of the tumor microenvironment, biomembrane-camouflaged nanoplatforms have been a research focus, reflecting their superiority in cancer targeting. In this review, we summarize the development of various biomimetic cell membrane-camouflaged nanoplatforms for cancer-targeted drug delivery, which are classified according to the membranes from different cells. The challenges and opportunities of the advanced biointerface engineering drug delivery nanosystems in cancer therapy are discussed.

Intratumoral delivery of M-CSF by calcium crosslinked polymer micelles enhances cancer immunotherapy

Immunotherapy has shown promising results in multiple malignancies. However, there are still significant challenges in cancer immunotherapy including the powerful immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and adverse off-target side effects. Nanomaterials with defined physico-biochemical properties are versatile drug delivery platforms that may address these key technical challenges faced by cancer immunotherapy. Here, a tumor acidity-responsive biomacromolecule delivery system was designed to intratumorally deliver an immune-activating cytokine, macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) and attenuate the acidic microenvironment. This nanoparticle was prepared by introducing CaCO3 as a crosslinker to form an M-CSF-loaded stable micelle (NP/M-CSF/CaCO3). Administration of NP/M-CSF/CaCO3 significantly inhibited tumor growth by enhancing T cell-mediated anti-tumor immune responses and reversing the TAM-mediated immunosuppression. This study provides new avenues for cascade amplification of the antitumor effects by targeting the tumor microenvironment. This approach may also help avoid unwanted complications.

Designing nanoparticle release systems for drug-vitamin cancer co-therapy with multiplicative perturbation-theory machine learning (PTML) models

Nano-systems for cancer co-therapy including vitamins or vitamin derivatives have showed adequate results to continue with further research studies to better understand them. However, the number of different combinations of drugs, vitamins, nanoparticle types, coating agents, synthesis conditions, and system types (nanocapsules, micelles, etc.) to be tested is very large generating a high cost in experimentations. In this context, there are reports of large datasets of preclinical assays of compounds (like in the ChEMBL database) and increasing but yet limited reports of experimental measurements of nano-systems per se. On the other hand, Machine Learning is gaining momentum in Nanotechnology and Pharmaceutical Sciences as a tool for rational design of new drugs and drug-release nano-systems. In this work, we propose to combine Perturbation Theory principles and Machine Learning to develop a PTML model for rational selection of the components of cancer co-therapy drug-vitamin release nano-systems (DVRNs). In doing so, we apply information fusion techniques with 2 data sets: (1) a large ChEMBL dataset of >36 000 preclinical assays of vitamin derivatives and a new dataset of >1000 outcomes of DVRNs, collected herein from the literature for the first time. The ChEMBL dataset used covers a considerable number of assay conditions (cjvit) each one with multiple levels. These conditions included >504 biological activity parameters (c0vit), >340 types of proteins (c1vit), >650 types of cells (c2vit), >120 assay organisms (c3vit), >60 assay strains (c4vit). Regarding the DVRNs, there are 25 different types of nano-systems (njn), with up to 16 conditions (cjn) including also different levels such as 8 biological activity parameters (c0n), 9 raw nanomaterials (c4n), 15 assay cells (c11n), etc. In the first stage, we used Moving Average operators to quantify the perturbations (deviations) in all input variables with respect to the conditions. After that, we used multiplicative PT operators to carry out data fusion, and dimension reduction, and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) to seek the PTML model. The best PTML model found showed values of specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy in the range of 83-88% in training and external validation series for >130 000 cases (DVRNs vs. ChEMBL data pairs) formed after data fusion. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first general purpose model for the rational design of DVRNs for cancer co-therapy.

Design And Characterisation Of Novel Sorafenib-Loaded Carbon Nanotubes With Distinct Tumour-Suppressive Activity In Hepatocellular Carcinoma

PURPOSE

Over the past 30 years, no consistent survival benefits have been recorded for anticancer agents of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), except for the multikinase inhibitor sorafenib (Nexavar®), which clinically achieves only ~3 months overall survival benefit. This modest benefit is attributed to limited aqueous solubility, slow dissolution rate and, consequently, limited absorption from the gastrointestinal tract. Thus, novel formulation modalities are in demand to improve the bioavailability of the drug to attack HCC in a more efficient manner. In the current study, we aimed to design a novel sorafenib-loaded carbon nanotubes (CNTs) formula that is able to improve the therapeutic efficacy of carried cargo against HCC and subsequently investigate the antitumour activity of this formula.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Sorafenib was loaded on functionalized CNTs through physical adsorption, and an alginate-based method was subsequently applied to microcapsulate the drug-loaded CNTs (CNTs-SFN). The therapeutic efficacy of the new formula was estimated and compared to that of conventional sorafenib, both in vitro (against HepG2 cells) and in vivo (in a DENA-induced HCC rat model).

RESULTS

The in vitro MTT anti-proliferative assay revealed that the drug-loaded CNTs formula was at least two-fold more cytotoxic towards HepG2 cells than was sorafenib itself. Moreover, the in vivo animal experiments proved that our innovative formula was superior to conventional sorafenib at all assessed end points. Circulating AFP-L3% was significantly decreased in the CNTs-SFN-MCs-treated group (14.0%) in comparison to that of the DENA (40.3%) and sorafenib (38.8%) groups. This superiority was further confirmed by Western blot analysis and immunofluorescence assessment of some HCC-relevant biomarkers.

CONCLUSION

Our results firmly suggest the distinctive cancer-suppressive nature of CNTs-SFN-MCs, both against HepG2 cells in vitro and in a DENA-induced HCC rat model in vivo, with a preferential superiority over conventional sorafenib.

Evolution in medicinal chemistry of sorafenib derivatives for hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors. Traditional chemotherapy drugs are hard to reach a satisfactory therapeutic effect since advanced HCC is highly chemo-resistant. Sorafenib is an oral multikinase inhibitor that can suppress tumor cell proliferation, angiogenesis and induce cancer cell apoptosis. However, the poor solubility, rapid metabolism and low bioavailability of sorafenib greatly restricted its further clinical application. During the past decade, numerous sorafenib derivatives have been designed and synthesized to overcome its disadvantages and improve its clinical performance. This article focuses on the therapeutic effects and mechanisms of various sorafenib derivatives with modifications on the N-methylpicolinamide group, urea group, central aromatic ring or others. More importantly, this review summarizes the current status of the structure-activity relationship (SAR) of reported sorafenib derivatives, which can provide some detailed information of future directions for further structural modifications of sorafenib to discovery new anti-tumor drugs with improved clinical performance.

Evaluation of Polymer Nanoformulations in Hepatoma Therapy by Established Rodent Models

Hepatoma is one of the most severe malignancies usually with poor prognosis, and many patients are insensitive to the existing therapeutic agents, including the drugs for chemotherapy and molecular targeted therapy. Currently, researchers are committed to developing the advanced formulations with controlled drug delivery to improve the efficacy of hepatoma therapy. Numerous inoculated, induced, and genetically engineered hepatoma rodent models are now available for formulation screening. However, animal models of hepatoma cannot accurately represent human hepatoma in terms of histological characteristics, metastatic pathways, and post-treatment responses. Therefore, advanced animal hepatoma models with comparable pathogenesis and pathological features are in urgent need in the further studies. Moreover, the development of nanomedicines has renewed hope for chemotherapy and molecular targeted therapy of advanced hepatoma. As one kind of advanced formulations, the polymer-based nanoformulated drugs have many advantages over the traditional ones, such as improved tumor selectivity and treatment efficacy, and reduced systemic side effects. In this article, the construction of rodent hepatoma model and much information about the current development of polymer nanomedicines were reviewed in order to provide a basis for the development of advanced formulations with clinical therapeutic potential for hepatoma.