Furin targeted drug delivery for treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma in a mouse model

PLoS One. 2010 May 3;5(5):e10445. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010445.

Abstract

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children. Improvement of treatment efficacy and decreased side effects through tumor-targeted drug delivery would be desirable. By panning with a phage-displayed cyclic random peptide library we selected a peptide with strong affinity for RMS in vitro and in vivo. The peptide minimal binding motif Arg-X-(Arg/Lys)(Arg/Lys) identified by alanine-scan, suggested the target receptor to be a proprotein convertase (PC). Expression profiling of all PCs in RMS biopsies and cell lines revealed consistent high expression levels for the membrane-bound furin and PC7. Direct binding of RMS-P3 peptide to furin was demonstrated by affinity chromatography and supported by activity and colocalization studies. Treatment of RMS in mice with doxorubicin coupled to the targeting peptide resulted in a two-fold increase in therapeutic efficacy compared to doxorubicin treatment alone. Our findings indicate surface-furin binding as novel mechanism for therapeutic cell penetration which needs to be further investigated. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that specific targeting of membrane-bound furin in tumors is possible for and suggests that RMS and other tumors might benefit from proprotein convertases targeted drug delivery.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Motifs
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Membrane / drug effects
  • Cell Membrane / metabolism
  • Cell Proliferation / drug effects
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Doxorubicin / pharmacology
  • Doxorubicin / therapeutic use*
  • Drug Delivery Systems*
  • Fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate / metabolism
  • Furin / metabolism*
  • Golgi Apparatus / drug effects
  • Golgi Apparatus / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Mice
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptide Library
  • Peptides / chemistry
  • Peptides / metabolism
  • Protein Binding / drug effects
  • Receptors, Cell Surface / metabolism
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Rhabdomyosarcoma / drug therapy*
  • Rhabdomyosarcoma / pathology
  • Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays

Substances

  • Peptide Library
  • Peptides
  • Receptors, Cell Surface
  • Doxorubicin
  • Furin
  • Fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate