Co-delivery of doxorubicin and curcumin via cRGD-peptide modified MPEG-PLA self-assembly nanomicelles for lung cancer therapy

Lung cancer is the most common malignancy in the world, with a high mortality rate. Nevertheless,therapies to act effectively against lung cancer remain elusive. So far, chemotherapy is still the frontline treatment of lung cancer. Doxorubicin（DOX） is a broad-spectrum anti-tumor drug. However, DOX often has serious side effects and causes multi-drug resistance, which greatly limits its clinical application.In this work, biodegradable methoxy poly（ethylene glycol）-poly（lactic acid）（MPEG-PLA） and cyclo（ArgGly-Asp-D-Phe-Lys）（c RGD） polypeptide modified PEG-PLA（c RGD-PEG-PLA） copolymers were used for the co-delivery of curcumin（CUR） and DOX（CUR-DOX/c RGD-M）. The particle size of the self-assembled drugloaded nanomicelle approximately was 27.4 nm and the zeta potential was -2.7mV. Interestingly, CUR can enhance the uptake of DOX by Lewis lung carcinoma（LL/2） cells. The experimental results in vivo and in vitro showed that CUR-DOX/c RGD-M combination therapy could promote apoptosis of lung cancer cells, and conspicuously inhibit the tumor growth. Our data indicate that CUR-DOX/c RGD-M will be biodegradable and sustainable, which may have potential clinical application value in the treatment of lung cancer.