Co-delivery of doxorubicin and shRNA of Beclin1 by folate receptor targeted pullulan-based multifunctional nanomicelles for combinational cancer therapy

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a widely-used effective antitumor agent. However, its clinical application is limited due to its side effects including anti-apoptotic defense of cancer cells caused by DOX-induced autophagy and deleterious effects in normal tissues. Therefore, in this study, a new folate (FA)-decorated amphiphilic bifunctional pullulan-based copolymer (named as FPDP) was developed as an efficient nano-carrier for the co-delivery of DOX and short hairpin RNA of Beclin1, a pivotal autophage-related gene, to enhance the anticancer effect of DOX by the blockade of the Beclin1 protein mediated autophagy process. In FPDP molecules, pullulan was modified with lipophilic desoxycholic acid for the formation of micelles, the introduced low molecular weight (1 kDa) branched polyethylenimine (PEI) was for shBeclin1 delivery, and folate (FA) was employed as the tumor-targeting group. FPDP micelles demonstrated an average diameter of 161.9 nm, good biocompatibility, applicable storage stability, excellent loading capacities for both DOX and shBeclin1 and a sustained drug release profile. In vitro cell culture experiments demonstrated that the uptake amount of FPDP/DOX micelles in folate receptor positive (FR(+)) HeLa cells was more than that in folate receptor negative (FR(−)) HepG2 cells, leading to significantly higher cytotoxicity against FR(+) HeLa cells. The simultaneous co-delivery of shBeclin1 and DOX to HeLa cells with FPDP micelles led to efficient reduction in the expression level of Beclin1 as well as synergistic cell apoptotic induction. Furthermore, in vivo studies revealed superior antitumor efficacy of tumor-targeted FPDP/DOX/shBeclin1 in comparison with non-FR-targeted PDP micelles and free DOX. These results highlighted that co-delivery of DOX and shRNA of Beclin1 with FPDP micelles has the potential to overcome the limitations of DOX in clinical cancer therapy.