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Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy

Chemotherapeutics represent the standard treatment for a wide range of cancers. However, these agents also affect healthy cells, thus leading to severe off-target effects. Given the non-selectivity of the commonly used drugs, any increase in the selective tumor tissue uptake would represent a signif...

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Autores principales: Bellotti, Elena, Cascone, Maria Grazia, Barbani, Niccoletta, Rossin, Daniela, Rastaldo, Raffaella, Giachino, Claudia, Cristallini, Caterina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8471118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34572461
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9091275
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author Bellotti, Elena
Cascone, Maria Grazia
Barbani, Niccoletta
Rossin, Daniela
Rastaldo, Raffaella
Giachino, Claudia
Cristallini, Caterina
author_facet Bellotti, Elena
Cascone, Maria Grazia
Barbani, Niccoletta
Rossin, Daniela
Rastaldo, Raffaella
Giachino, Claudia
Cristallini, Caterina
author_sort Bellotti, Elena
collection PubMed
description Chemotherapeutics represent the standard treatment for a wide range of cancers. However, these agents also affect healthy cells, thus leading to severe off-target effects. Given the non-selectivity of the commonly used drugs, any increase in the selective tumor tissue uptake would represent a significant improvement in cancer therapy. Recently, the use of gene therapy to completely remove the lesion and avoid the toxicity of chemotherapeutics has become a tendency in oncotherapy. Ideally, the genetic material must be safely transferred from the site of administration to the target cells, without involving healthy tissues. This can be achieved by encapsulating genes into non-viral carriers and modifying their surface with ligands with high selectivity and affinity for a relevant receptor on the target cells. Hence, in this work we evaluate the use of terpolymer-based nanocapsules for the targeted delivery of DNA toward cancer cells. The surface of the nanocapsules is decorated with folic acid to actively target the folate receptors overexpressed on a variety of cancer cells. The nanocapsules demonstrate a good ability of encapsulating and releasing DNA. Moreover, the presence of the targeting moieties on the surface of the nanocapsules favors cell uptake, opening up the possibility of more effective therapies.
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spelling pubmed-84711182021-09-27 Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy Bellotti, Elena Cascone, Maria Grazia Barbani, Niccoletta Rossin, Daniela Rastaldo, Raffaella Giachino, Claudia Cristallini, Caterina Biomedicines Article Chemotherapeutics represent the standard treatment for a wide range of cancers. However, these agents also affect healthy cells, thus leading to severe off-target effects. Given the non-selectivity of the commonly used drugs, any increase in the selective tumor tissue uptake would represent a significant improvement in cancer therapy. Recently, the use of gene therapy to completely remove the lesion and avoid the toxicity of chemotherapeutics has become a tendency in oncotherapy. Ideally, the genetic material must be safely transferred from the site of administration to the target cells, without involving healthy tissues. This can be achieved by encapsulating genes into non-viral carriers and modifying their surface with ligands with high selectivity and affinity for a relevant receptor on the target cells. Hence, in this work we evaluate the use of terpolymer-based nanocapsules for the targeted delivery of DNA toward cancer cells. The surface of the nanocapsules is decorated with folic acid to actively target the folate receptors overexpressed on a variety of cancer cells. The nanocapsules demonstrate a good ability of encapsulating and releasing DNA. Moreover, the presence of the targeting moieties on the surface of the nanocapsules favors cell uptake, opening up the possibility of more effective therapies. MDPI 2021-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8471118/ /pubmed/34572461 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9091275 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bellotti, Elena
Cascone, Maria Grazia
Barbani, Niccoletta
Rossin, Daniela
Rastaldo, Raffaella
Giachino, Claudia
Cristallini, Caterina
Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy
title Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy
title_full Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy
title_fullStr Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy
title_full_unstemmed Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy
title_short Targeting Cancer Cells Overexpressing Folate Receptors with New Terpolymer-Based Nanocapsules: Toward a Novel Targeted DNA Delivery System for Cancer Therapy
title_sort targeting cancer cells overexpressing folate receptors with new terpolymer-based nanocapsules: toward a novel targeted dna delivery system for cancer therapy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8471118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34572461
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9091275
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