F-127-PEI co-delivering docetaxel and TFPI-2 plasmid for nasopharyngeal cancer therapy

The co-delivery of drug and gene has become the primary strategy in cancer therapy. However, to construct one safe co-delivering system with higher drug loading and gene transfection efficiency for cancer therapy is still challenging. Herein, a novel degradable nanocarriers were synthesized and characterized in this study, which was composed of polyethylenimine (PEI)-linked PEO-PPO-PEO (Pluronic F127), called F127-PEI. Then the nanocarrier was used for hydrophobic docetaxel (DOC) and functional gene (TFPI-2 plasmid) co-delivery to treat nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC). The results indicated that F127-PEI nanocarriers had higher DOC loading amount and possessed good gene delivery effect in vitro. For co-delivery analysis, the obtained F127-PEI/DOC/TFPI-2 complexes could induce a more significant apoptosis than DOC or TFPI-2 alone, and decreased invasive capacity of NPC HNE-1 cells more obviously. Moreover, the F127-PEI copolymer exhibited better blood compatibility and lower cytotoxicity compared to PEI-25k by the hemolysis and MTT assays, which suggests a promising potential for NPC therapy. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.National Natural Science Foundation of China [81260406, 81272687, 81573000]; Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [2015A030313864]; Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [LZ13H160004]SCI(E)EIPubMedARTICLEtaoliu18@126.com; nghui@21cn.com269-2776