A mechanistic study of the effect of transferrin conjugation on cytotoxicity of targeted liposomes

Engineered liposomes mediated approach for targeted colorectal cancer drug Delivery: A review

Colorectal cancer (CRC) continues to be one of the most prevalent and deadliest forms of cancer worldwide, despite notable advancements in its management. The prognosis for metastatic CRC remains discouraging, with a relative 5-year survival rate for stage IV CRC patients. Conventional treatments for advanced malignancies such as chemotherapy, often face limitations in effectively targeting cancer cells resulting in off-target distribution and significant side effects. In the quest for better strategies, researchers have explored numerous alternatives. Among these, nanoparticles (NPs) specifically liposomes have emerged as one of the most promising candidates in developing targeted delivery systems for cancer therapeutics. This review discusses the current approaches employing functionalised liposomes to overcome major biological barriers in therapeutics delivery for CRC treatment. We have also shared our perspectives on the technological development of liposomes for future clinical use and highlighted a few useful insights on the material choices for future research work in CRC.

What We Need to Know about Liposomes as Drug Nanocarriers: An Updated Review

Liposomes have been attracted considerable attention as phospholipid spherical vesicles, over the past 40 years. These lipid vesicles are valued in biomedical application due to their ability to carry both hydrophobic and hydrophilic agents, high biocompatibility and biodegradability. Various methods have been used for the synthesis of liposomes, so far and numerous modifications have been performed to introduce liposomes with different characteristics like surface charge, size, number of their layers, and length of circulation in biological fluids. This article provides an overview of the significant advances in synthesis of liposomes via active or passive drug loading methods, as well as describes some strategies developed to fabricate their targeted formulations to overcome limitations of the "first-generation" liposomes.

Development of Novel Lipid-Based Formulations for Water-Soluble Vitamin C versus Fat-Soluble Vitamin D3

The aim of this study was to develop a facile and novel lipid-based formulation of vitamin C and vitamin D3. Liposomes loaded with vitamin C and D3 were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and zeta potential measurements for evaluating morphology, particle size and physical stability. HPLC was employed to quantify the content of vitamin C and vitamin D3 in their liposomal forms. The UHPLC analysis of the lipid-based vitamin formulation is an easy and rapid method for the characterization as well as the quantification of all components. In addition, encapsulation efficiency, vitamin loading and stability analysis were performed by the UHPLC method, in order to evaluate the reliability of the optimized lipid-based formulation. The TEM results provided key support for the core type of liposome structure in the formulations, whereas the HPLC results indicated that the liposomal vitamin C and D3 systems were homogeneous, and did not undergo phase separation. Taken together, the results demonstrate that liposomal encapsulated vitamins (vitamin C and D3) possess a unilamellar vesicle morphology with uniform particle size, despite differences in the hydrophile-lipophile profiles of the vitamins. The highly efficient encapsulation properties of such liposomal constructs are proposed to contribute to enhanced vitamin bioavailability.

Functionalized liposomes as drug nanocarriers for active targeted cancer therapy: a systematic review

Cancer is a broad term used to describe a group of diseases that have more than 270 types. Today, due to the suffering of patients from the side effects of existing methods in the treatment of cancer such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the employment of targeted methods in the treatment of this disease has been received much consideration. In recent years, nanoparticles have revolutionized in the treatment of many diseases such as cancer. Among these nanoparticles, liposomes are more considerable. Active targeted liposomes show an important role in the selective action of the drug on cancer cells. Until now, a variety of anti-cancer agents have been reported for targeted delivery to cancer cells using liposomes. The results of in vitro and studies in vivo have been shown that selective action of the targeted liposomes is increased with reduced side effects and toxicity compared with free drugs or non-targeted liposomes. This systematic review expresses the reports of this type of drug delivery system. Search terms were searched through several online databases including PubMed, Scopus, and Science Direct from 1990 to 2019 and the quality evaluation was performed. Out of 11,676 published articles, 196 articles met the inclusion criteria. The current report reviews developments in the liposomes targeted with aptamer, transferrin, folate, and monoclonal antibodies.

Liposome technologies towards colorectal cancer therapeutics

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the fourth most common deadly cancer worldwide. After treatment with curative intent recurrence rates vary with staging 0-13% in Stage 1, 11-61% in S2 and 28-73% in Stage 3. The toxicity to healthy tissues from chemotherapy and radiotherapy and drug resistance severely affect the quality of life and cancer specific outcomes of CRC patients. To overcome some of these limitations, many efforts have been made to develop nanomaterial-based drug delivery systems. Among these nanocarriers, liposomes represented one of the most successful candidates in delivering targeted oncological treatment, improving safety profile and therapeutic efficacy of encapsulated drugs. In this review we will discuss liposome design with a particular focus on the targeting feature and triggering functions. We will also summarise the recent advances in liposomal delivery system for CRC treatment in both the preclinical and clinical studies. We will finally provide our perspectives on the liposome technology development for the future clinical translation. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Conventional treatments for colorectal cancer (CRC) severely affect the therapeutic effects for advanced patients. With the development of nanomedicines, liposomal delivery system appears to be one of the most promising nanocarriers for CRC treatment. In last three years several reviews in this area have been published focusing on the preclinical research and drug delivery function, which is a fairly narrow focus in the field of liposome technology for CRC therapy. Our review presented the most recent advances of the liposome technology (both clinical and preclinical applications) for CRC with strong potential for further clinical translation. We believe it will attract lots of attention from various audiences, including researchers, clinicians and the industry.

Dual-Effect of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reporter Gene in Diagnosis and Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Propose

The early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with ferritin heavy chain (Fth) modified by alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) promoter has been studied. However, no study has focused on the considerable upregulation and specific targeting effects of transferrin receptors (TfR) caused by the transfection of plasmids encoded with the AFP promoter. Thus, the objective of our study was to investigate whether the transfection of Fth gene modified with AFP promoter (AFP@Fth) could be used for early diagnosis and enhanced treatment of HCC.

Methods

The AFP@Fth plasmid was transfected into AFP positive cells. The expression of intracellular Ferritin was verified by Western blot, and the upregulation of TfR was confirmed by immunofluorescence and flow cytometry analysis. Cellular iron accumulation resulting in decreased imaging signals was examined by magnetic resonance imagining. Doxorubicin liposome modified with transferrin (Tf-LPD) was prepared to investigate the efficiency of the subsequent treatment after transfection. The enhanced drug distribution and effects were investigated both in vitro and in vivo.

Results

Both Ferritin and TfR were overexpressed after transfection. The transfected cells showed higher intracellular iron accumulation and resulted in a lower MR T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) intensity, suggesting that the transfection of AFP@Fth could be a potential strategy for early diagnosis of liver cancer. The following treatment efficacy was revealed by Tf-LPD. As compared with un-transfected cells, transfected cells exhibited higher uptake of transferrin-modified liposomes (Tf-LP), which was due to the specific interaction between Tf and TfR overexpressed on the transfected cells. This is also the reason why Tf-LPD showed better in vitro and in vivo anticancer ability than doxorubicin loaded liposome (LPD). These results suggested that transfection of AFP@Fth could result in enhanced therapy of liver cancer.

Conclusion

Transfection of AFP@Fth could be used for early diagnosis and for enhanced treatment of live cancers.

Interlink between improved formulations, inhibitory concentrations and cell death mechanism investigations of cytotoxic drugs: What really matters?

In this article, IC₅₀ concentrations derived from MTT assay for further evaluating of cell death induced by new formulations were discussed. This review attempts to introduce an enhanced approach for evaluation of cell death mechanisms based on routine cytotoxicity assays for anti-cancer medications. It is highly desirable for anti-cancer drugs to induce apoptotic cell death in order to have better efficacy and less complications. According to our previous results and other comparable studies, cell death mechanisms and phenotypes followed by cytotoxic drugs are rigorously concentration dependent; therefore, calculated IC₅₀s obtained through cytotoxicity assays should be exactly employed for evaluating of cell death mechanisms. More appropriately, it is better to select concentrations which are closer to the efficient plasma levels for additional cell death evaluations. If enough amounts of new formulated materials are available, it is suggested to calculate and compare IC₅₀s for old and improved formulations at different concentration ranges; otherwise, when materials are not sufficiently available or the toxicity of new formulation is not high enough to yield an IC₅₀, then some specific point to point comparison between corresponding concentrations within a reasonable range should be made. Another important point is that IC₅₀ values obtained via in vitro assays are frequently higher than in vivo or therapeutic plasma concentrations and it seems better to use improved formulation^'s IC₅₀s which are more comparable to clinical plasma concentrations or consider IC₂₅s of free drugs for determination of cell death mechanisms.

Development and Characterization of Nanoliposomal Hydroxyurea Against BT-474 Breast Cancer Cells

Purpose: Hydroxyurea (HU) is a well-known chemotherapy drug with several side effects which limit its clinical application. This study was conducted to improve its therapeutic efficiency against breast cancer using liposomes as FDA-approved drug carriers.

Methods: PEGylated nanoliposomes-containing HU (NL-HU) were made via a thin-film hydration method, and assessed in terms of zeta potential, size, morphology, release, stability, cellular uptake, and cytotoxicity. The particle size and zeta potential of NL-HU were specified by zeta-sizer. The drug release from liposomes was assessed by dialysis diffusion method. Cellular uptake was evaluated by flow cytometry. The cytotoxicity was designated by methyl thiazolyl diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) test.

Results: The size and zeta value of NL-HU were gotten as 85 nm and -27 mV, respectively. NL-HU were spherical.NL-HU vesicles were detected to be stable for two months. The slow drug release and Weibull kinetic model were obtained. Liposomes considerably enhanced the uptake of HU into BT-474 human breast cancer cells. The cytotoxicity of NL-HU on BT-474 cells was found to be significantly more than that of free HU.

Conclusion: The results confirmed these PEGylated nanoliposomes containing drug are potentially suitable against in vitro model of breast cancer.