In vivo treatment of tumors using host-guest conjugated nanoparticles functionalized with doxorubicin and therapeutic gene pTRAIL

The combination of gene therapy and chemotherapy may increase the therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of patients. In this work, the anti-cancer drug Dox and therapeutic gene pTRAIL-loaded host-guest co-delivery system was assayed for the possibility of in vivo synergistically treating tumors. The introduced Dox could act as an auxiliary component to human tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand-encoding plasmid gene pTRAIL. Such delivery system possessed the good ability of in vivo retention of chemotherapeutic drugs, achieved good therapeutic effects in the inhibition of tumor growth and significantly prolonged the survival time of tumor-bearing mice. With the efficient ability to co-deliver drug and gene, such host guest assembly should have great potential applications in cancer therapy. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.