AMD3100-tagged nano-gold as a targeting nanocarrier for delivery of doxorubicin into lung cancer cells

Abstract

Doxorubicin (DOX) is widely used as a traditional chemotherapy drug in tumor treatment, but its dose-dependent side effects make it susceptible to acquired resistance. CXCR4 is a chemokine receptor that has high expression in many cancers, including lung cancer. In this work, we studied the possibility of using CXCR4 antagonist, AMD3100, as a targeting molecule to targeted delivery of DOX to CXCR4 expressing lung cancer cells through conjugated gold nanoparticles (Au NPs). DOX was intercalated inside the pH-responsive doublestrand DNA (dsDNA) and then conveniently loaded onto the Au NPs. The CXCR4 antagonist, AMD3100, was bonded with LA-PEG, and then conjugated to the surface of Au-S bond. The doxorubicin release from AuNPs@DOX@AMD3100 NPs was in a pH-dependent model, and specificity of AuNPs@DOX@AMD3100 nanoparticle was verified by using free DOX and Au@DOX NPs as control. Results in this work not only confirmed the possibility of using AMD3100 as a targeting ligand for tumor-targeted treatment, but also suggested that the non-toxic Au NPs is a prospect nanocarrier for target design of cancer therapy.