A polyoxyethylene sorbitan oleate modified hollow gold nanoparticle system to escape macrophage phagocytosis designed for triple combination lung cancer therapy via LDL-R mediated endocytosis

Presently, a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, thermotherapy, and other treatments has become a hot topic of research for the treatment of cancer, especially lung cancer. In this study, novel hollow gold nanoparticles (HGNPs) were used as drug carriers, and in order to improve the targeting ability of HGNPs to a lung tumor site, polyoxyethylene sorbitol oleate (PSO) was chosen here as a target ligand since it can be specifically recognized by the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor which is usually over expressed on A549 lung cancer cells. In this way, a PSO-modified doxorubicin-loaded HGNP drug delivery system (PSO-HGNPs-DOX) was constructed and its physicochemical properties, photothermal conversion ability, and drug release of PSO-HGNPs-DOX was investigated. Further, the effects of triple combination therapy, the intracellular uptake, and the ability to escape macrophage phagocytosis of PSO-HGNPs-DOX were also studied using A549 cells in vitro. In addition, an in vivo mouse model was also used to study the targeting of PSO-HGNPs-DOX to lung cancer. PSO-HGNPs-DOX demonstrated a good triple therapeutic effect for lung cancer (A549 cell viability was only 10% at 500 μM) by LDL receptor mediated endocytosis and was able to escape macrophage phagocytosis to enhance its accumulation at the target site. Therefore, PSO-HGNPs-DOX is a novel, safe, promising, and targeted drug carrier designed for triple combination lung cancer therapy which should be further studied for such applications.