Self-Assembly Engineering Nanodrugs Composed of Paclitaxel and Curcumin for the Combined Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Shuting Zuo; Zhenyu Wang; Xianquan An; Jing Wang; Xiao Zheng; Dan Shao; Yan Zhang

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2021.747637

Self-Assembly Engineering Nanodrugs Composed of Paclitaxel and Curcumin for the Combined Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2021 Aug 24:9:747637. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.747637. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Shuting Zuo¹, Zhenyu Wang¹, Xianquan An², Jing Wang¹, Xiao Zheng³, Dan Shao³, Yan Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Breast Surgery, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
² Department of Anesthesiology, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China.
³ School of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

The clinical outcomes of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) chemotherapy are unsatisfactory. Water solubility and biosafety of chemo drugs are also major barriers for achieving satisfactory treatment effect. In this study, we have reported a combinational strategy by self-assembly engineering nanodrugs PC NDs, which were composed of paclitaxel (PTX) and curcumin (Cur), for effective and safe TNBC chemotherapy. PC NDs were prepared through reprecipitation method without using any additional carriers. The PC NDs were preferentially taken up by TNBC cells and we also observed pH-related drug release. Compared with free PTX and simple PTX/Cur mixture, PC NDs have shown higher therapeutic efficiency and better prognosis while the metastasis rate was significantly lower than that of either PTX or PTX/Cur mix group. Therefore, the self-assembly engineered PC NDs might be a promising nanodrugs for efficient and safe TNBC chemotherapy.

Keywords: curcumin; nanodrug; paclitaxel; self-assembly; triple-negative breast cancer.