Aging
Navigate
Submit an Article
Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 2|pp 1872—1882

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes co-delivering sorafenib and epidermal growth factor receptor siRNA enhanced tumor-suppressing effect on liver cancer

Zhili Wen1, Yuliang Feng2, Youwen Hu1, Lingyan Lian1, Hongyan Huang1, Li Guo1, Shanwen Chen1, Qian Yang1, Moran Zhang1, Lijun Wan1, Kedong Xu1, Degejirifu1, Xiaohua Yan3
  • 1Department of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
  • 2Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT 06032, USA
  • 3Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang, China
* Equal contribution
Received: May 2, 2020Accepted: July 21, 2020Published: January 13, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103905

Copyright: © 2021 Wen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effects of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) co-delivering sorafenib (Sor) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) siRNA (MWNT/Sor/siRNA) on tumor growth in liver cancer (LC).

Results: MWNT/Sor/siRNA was proved to possess increased Sor release, high siRNA stability, and enhanced cellular uptake. In addition, MWNT treatment has few effects on cell proliferation and apoptosis in HepG2 cells; however, MWNT/Sor/siRNA treatment significantly inhibited clone number and induced cell apoptosis, which shows a more favorable antitumor effect than MWNT/Sor and free Sor and free siRNA in HepG2 cells. Moreover MWNT/Sor/siRNA treatment has the most significant antitumor effect in vivo.

Conclusions: MWNT/Sor/siRNA exhibited a superior antitumor effect in vitro and in vivo.

Methods: The MWNT/Sor and MWNT/Sor/siRNA were prepared, and then the morphologies of MWNT/Sor/siRNA were analyzed. In vitro Sor release assay, siRNA stability and cellular uptake of MWNT/Sor/siRNA were performed as well. Next, the effects of MWNT, free Sor, free siRNA, MWNT/Sor and MWNT/Sor/siRNA were evaluated by colony-forming assay, and cell apoptosis assay in HepG2 cells. Meanwhile, the level of EGFR and proteins associated with apoptosis was tested. Furthermore, the anti-tumor effects of MWNT/Sor/siRNA on LC xenograft mice were also unraveled.