Nanoparticle-mediated co-delivery of chemotherapeutic agent and siRNA for combination cancer therapy

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. Current cancer treatments in the clinic mainly include chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, with chemotherapy being the most common.

Areas covered: Cancer treatments based on the single ‘magic-bullet’ concept are often associated with limited therapeutic efficacy, unwanted adverse effects, and drug resistance. The combination of multiple drugs is a promising strategy for effective cancer treatment due to the synergistic or additive effects. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) has the ability to knock down the expression of carcinogenic genes or drug efflux transporter genes, paving the way for cancer treatment. Treatment with both a chemotherapeutic agent and siRNA based on nanoparticle (NP)-mediated co-delivery is a promising approach for combination cancer therapy.

Expert opinion: The combination of chemotherapeutic agents and siRNAs for cancer treatment offers the potential to enhance therapeutic efficacy, decrease side effects, and overcome drug resistance. Co-delivery of chemical drug and siRNA in the same NP would be much more effective in cancer therapy than application of chemical agent or siRNA alone. With the development of material science, NPs have come to be the most widely used platform for co-delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs and siRNAs.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-delivery
• chemical drug
• siRNA
• nanoparticle
• combination therapy
• cancer

Article highlights

• The combination of multiple ‘magic-bullets’ is a promising approach for cancer therapy.

• Combination therapy based on chemotherapy and RNAi technology can modulate different cellular pathways in tumor cells, thus maximizing the therapeutic efficacy and minimizing the unwanted adverse effect.

• Nanoparticle-mediated co-delivery of chemotherapeutic agent and siRNA is more effective in treating cancer than the application of drugs or siRNA alone.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

D Merlin is a recipient of a Career Scientist Award from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Department of Veterans Affairs (BX002526), the National Institutes of Health of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney by the grant (RO1-DK-071594), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51503172 and 81571807), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU114086 and XDJK2015C067) and the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars (State Education Ministry).