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Photodynamic therapy of a 2-methoxyestradiol tumor-targeting drug delivery system mediated by Asn-Gly-Arg in breast cancer

Authors Shi J, Wang Z, Wang L, Wang H, Li, Yu, Zhang, Ma R, Zhang Z

Received 7 November 2012

Accepted for publication 31 December 2012

Published 19 April 2013 Volume 2013:8(1) Pages 1551—1562

DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S40011

Checked for plagiarism Yes

Review by Single anonymous peer review

Peer reviewer comments 2



Jinjin Shi, Zhenzhen Wang, Lei Wang, Honghong Wang, Lulu Li, Xiaoyuan Yu, Jing Zhang, Rou Ma, Zhenzhong Zhang

School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, People's Republic of China

Abstract: Fullerene (C60) has shown great potential in drug delivery. In this study we exploited modified fullerene (diadduct malonic acid-fullerene-Asn-Gly-Arg peptide [DMA-C60-NGR]) as an antitumor drug carrier in order to build a new tumor-targeting drug delivery system. We also investigated the synergistic enhancement of cancer therapy using photodynamic therapy (PDT) induced by DMA-C60-NGR and 2-methoxyestradiol (2ME). Cytotoxicity tests indicated that DMA-C60-NGR had no obvious toxicity, while our drug delivery system (DMA-C60-2ME-NGR) had a high inhibition effect on MCF-7 cells compared to free 2ME. The tumor-targeting drug delivery system could efficiently cross cell membranes, and illumination induced the generation of intracellular reactive oxygen species and DNA damage. Furthermore, DMA-C60-2ME-NGR with irradiation had the highest inhibition effect on MCF-7 cells compared to the other groups. DMA-C60-NGR combined with 2ME showed a good synergistic photosensitization effect for inhibiting the growth of MCF-7 cells, demonstrating that DMA-C60-2ME-NGR may be promising for high treatment efficacy with minimal side effects in future therapy.

Keywords: fullerene, drug delivery system, photodynamic therapy, tumor targeting

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