Transcriptional control of the MUC16 promoter facilitates follicle-stimulating hormone peptide-conjugated shRNA nanoparticle-mediated inhibition of ovarian carcinoma in vivo

Drug Delivery

Jun Chen¹  Ming-Xing Zhang²  Shan-Shan Hong²  Meng Zhang²  Qing-Qing Cai³  Cong-Jian Xu³  Xiao-Yan Zhang³ 

[1]Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, Chin

[2]Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

[3]Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

[4]Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Shanghai Medical School, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

[5]Shanghai Key Laboratory of Female Reproductive Endocrine Related Diseases, Shanghai, China

关键词: Ovarian carcinoma;    MUC16;    follicle-stimulating hormone;    targeted therapy;    nanoparticle;   

DOI  :  10.1080/10717544.2018.1451934

来源: publisher

【 摘 要 】

Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among gynecological malignancies. The high mortality rate has not been significantly reduced despite advances in surgery and chemotherapy. Gene therapy shows therapeutic potential, but several key issues must be resolved before clinical application. To minimize toxicity in noncancerous tissues, tumor-specific ligands are conjugated to vectors to increase the selectivity of drug delivery. The expression pattern of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) receptor in normal and cancer tissues provides an opportunity for highly selective drug delivery in ovarian cancer. Furthermore, tumor-specific promoters can conditionally regulate therapeutic gene expression in tumor or normal tissues. The mucin 16 (MUC16) promoter might be a potential tool to drive ovarian cancer-localized gene expression since MUC16/CA125 is overexpressed in most ovarian carcinomas. Here, we screened the possible MUC16 promoter sequences and constructed MUC16 promoter-driven gro-α shRNA plasmid vectors. The vectors were specifically delivered into ovarian cancer cells via FSH peptide-conjugated nanoparticles. The predicted promoter sequence with TAAA repeats showed high transcriptional activity. The nanoparticle complex containing MUC16 promoter-driven gro-α shRNA and FSH peptides had the ability to decrease gro-α protein secretion in ovarian cancer cells and block tumor growth without obvious toxic effects in a nude mouse model bearing ovarian cancer. Our study provides a novel gene delivery system using a MUC16 promoter trigger and FSH peptide-mediated active targeting in ovarian cancer, and this system may be a promising strategy for specific genetic therapeutic delivery.

【 授权许可】

CC BY