Development and evaluation of novel tumor-targeting paclitaxel-loaded nano-carriers for ovarian cancer treatment: in vitro and in vivo

BACKGROUND: Ovarian cancer is the most leading cause of death and the third most common gynecologic malignancy in women. Traditional chemotherapy has inevitable drawbacks of nonspecific tumor targeting, high toxicity, and poor therapeutic efficiency. In order to overcome such shortcomings, we prepared a novel nano-carrier drug-delivery system to enhance the anti-tumor efficiency. METHODS: In vitro characterizations of nano-carriers were determined by TEM, DLS. Cell viability was measured by MTT method. RT-PCR was performed to measure the expression of FARα in three ovarian cancer cell lines. The drug-release study and the uptaken study were measured in vitro. The pharmacokinetic and the drug distribution study were verified by HPLC methods in vivo. The enhanced anti-tumor efficiency of FA-NP was evaluated by the tumor inhibitory rate in vivo. RESULTS: Paclitaxel (PTX)-loaded nanoparticles (NPs) (PTX-PEG-PLA-NP and PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP) were prepared successfully, and the drug-release study showed that the cumulative release rates of NP groups were much less than free PTX group. The pharmacokinetic study showed that the elimination phase of two kinds of NP groups were much longer than that of PTX group. The drug distribution in different tissues showed that the peak-reach time was 2 h in the PTX group and 6 h in both NP groups. All of these results confirmed the excellent slow-release effects of both kinds of nano-carriers. More importantly, we confirmed that PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP had greater uptake by SK-OV-3 cells than PTX-PEG-PLA-NP and free PTX in vitro. A drug-distribution study of tumor-bearing mice demonstrated that the PTX concentration of tumor tissues in the PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP group was 3 times higher than the other two groups. PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP was uptaken much more by SK-OV-3 cells than PTX-PEG-PLA-NP and free PTX. Eventually, based on the slow-release effect and tumor-targeting characteristics of PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP, a cytotoxicity test indicated that PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP was much more toxic to SK-OV-3 cells than the controls. The tumor inhibitory rate in the PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP group of tumor-bearing mice was about 1.5 times higher than the controls. The tumor targeting and anti-tumor efficiency of PTX-PEG-PLA-FA-NP were confirmed both in vitro and in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: We developed an ovarian cancer targeting nano-carrier drug delivery system successfully, which showed perfect ovarian cancer targeting and anti-tumor effect, thus have the potential to be a new therapy strategy for ovarian cancer patients. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13046-018-0700-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.