Biomimetic nanovesicle co-delivery system impairs energy metabolism for cancer treatment

Metabolic reprogramming in cancer cells plays a crucial role in cancer development, metastasis and invasion. Cancer cells have a unique metabolism profile that could switch between glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in order to satisfy a higher proliferative rate and enable survival in tumor microenvironment. Although dietary-based cancer starvation therapy has shown some positive outcomes for cancer treatment, it is difficult for patients to persist for a long time due to the adverse effects. Here in this study, we developed a specific M1 macrophage-derived membrane-based drug delivery system for breast cancer treatment. Both metformin and 3-Bromopyruvate were loaded into the engineered cell membrane-based biomimetic carriers (Met-3BP-Lip@M1) for the shutdown of energy metabolism in cancer cells via simultaneous inhibition of both glycolysis and oxygen consumption. The in vitro studies showed that Met-3BP-Lip@M1 had excellent cancer cell uptake and enhanced cancer cell apoptosis via cell cycle arrest. Our results also demonstrated that this novel biomimetic nanomedicine-based cancer starvation therapy synergistically improved the therapeutic efficiency against breast cancer cells by blocking energy metabolic pathways, which resulted in a significant reduction of cancer cell proliferation, 3D tumor spheroid growth as well as in vivo tumor growth.