Cetuximab-modified mesoporous silica nano-medicine specifically targets EGFR-mutant lung cancer and overcomes drug resistance

Drug resistance to tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) is the main obstacle for efficient treatment of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutant lung cancer patients. Here we design a cetuximab-capped mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MP-SiO(2) NP) as the drug carrier to specifically target EGFR-mutant lung cancer cells and efficiently release loaded drugs including doxorubicin and gefitinib. This innovative nano-medicine can specifically target lung cancer cells with high EGFR expression rather than those with low EGFR level. Treatment of a gefitinib-resistant cell line derived from PC9 cell (PC9-DR) with the gefitinib-loaded cetuximab-capped MP-SiO(2) NP showed a significant inhibition of cell growth. Moreover, this nano-medicine successfully suppressed the progression of PC9-DR xenograft tumors. This tumor suppression was due to the endocytosis of large amount of nano-medicine and the effective gefitinib release induced by high glutathione (GSH) level in PC9-DR cells. Collectively, our study provides a novel approach to overcome EGFR-TKI resistance using cetuximab modified MP-SiO(2) NP, which holds strong potential for effective management of EGFR-mutant lung cancer.