Precise pancreatic cancer therapy through targeted degradation of mutant p53 protein by cerium oxide nanoparticles

BACKGROUND: In a significant proportion of cancers, point mutations of TP53 gene occur within the DNA-binding domain, resulting in an abundance of mutant p53 proteins (mutp53) within cells, which possess tumor-promoting properties. A potential and straightforward strategy for addressing p53-mutated cancer involves the induction of autophagy or proteasomal degradation. Based on the previously reported findings, elevating oxidative state in the mutp53 cells represented a feasible approach for targeting mutp53. However, the nanoparticles previous reported lacked sufficient specificity of regulating ROS in tumor cells, consequently resulted in unfavorable toxicity in healthy cells. RESULTS: We here in showed that cerium oxide CeO(2) nanoparticles (CeO(2) NPs) exhibited an remarkable elevated level of ROS production in tumor cells, as compared to healthy cells, demonstrating that the unique property of CeO(2) NPs in cancer cells provided a feasible solution to mutp53 degradation. CeO(2) NPs elicited K48 ubiquitination-dependent degradation of wide-spectrum mutp53 proteins in a manner that was dependent on both the dissociation of mutp53 from the heat shock proteins Hsp90/70 and the increasing production of ROS. As expected, degradation of mutp53 by CeO(2) NPs abrogated mutp53-manifested gain-of-function (GOF), leading to a reduction in cell proliferation and migration, and dramatically improved the therapeutic efficacy in a BxPC-3 mutp53 tumor model. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, CeO(2) NPs increasing ROS specifically in the mutp53 cancer cells displayed a specific therapeutic efficacy in mutp53 cancer and offered an effective solution to address the challenges posed by mutp53 degradation, as demonstrated in our present study. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-023-01867-6.