Enhanced Antiglioblastoma Efficacy of Neovasculature and Glioma Cells Dual Targeted Nanoparticles

Combining treatment of anticancer cells and antiangiogenesis is considered to be a potential targeted strategy for brain glioblastoma therapy. In this study, by utilizing the overexpression of Interleukin 13 receptor α2 (IL-13Rα2) on the glioma cells and heparan sulfate on neovascular endothelial cells, we developed a paclitaxel (PTX) loaded Pep-1 and CGKRK peptide-modified PEG–PLGA nanoparticle (PC-NP-PTX) for glioma cells and neovasculature dual-targeted chemotherapy to enhance the antiglioma efficacy. There were significant differences both on the enhancement of cellular uptake in HUVEC and C6 cells and on the improvement of <i>in vitro</i> antiglioma activity in the respect of proliferation, tumor spheroid growth, tube formation, and migration between PC-NP-PTX and Taxol and NP-PTX. As for C6 cells, the IC₅₀ were 3.59 ± 0.056, 2.37 ± 0.044, 1.38 ± 0.028, 1.82 ± 0.035, and 1.00 ± 0.016 μg/mL of Taxol, NP-PTX, Pep-NP-PTX, CGKRK-NP-PTX, and PC-NP-PTX, and for HUVEC cells, the IC₅₀ were 0.44 ± 0.006, 0.33 ± 0.005, 0.25 ± 0.005, 0.19 ± 0.004, and 0.16 ± 0.004 μg/mL of Taxol, NP-PTX, Pep-NP-PTX, CGKRK-NP-PTX, and PC-NP-PTX, respectively. <i>In vivo</i> distribution assays confirmed that PC-NP-PTX targeted and accumulated effectively at glioma site. PC-NP-PTX showed a longer median survival time of 61 days when compared with Taxol (22 days), NP-PTX (24 days), Pep-NP-PTX (32 days), and CGKRK-NP-PTX (34 days). The <i>in vivo</i> antiglioma efficacy and safety evaluation showed PC-NP-PTX significantly enhanced the antiglioma efficacy and displayed negligible acute toxicity