Combinatorial Therapy: Targeting CD133+ Glioma Stem-like Cells with a Polysaccharide-Prodrug Complex Functionalised Gold Nanocages

Overview

Journal Biomedicines

Specialty Biomedical Engineering

Date 2024 May 25

PMID 38790896

Authors

Sreejith Raveendran

Amit Giram

Mehrnaz Elmi

Santanu Ray

Christopher Ireson

Mo Alavijeh

Irina N Savina

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Cancer treatments are advancing to harness the body's immune system against tumours, aiming for lasting effects. This progress involves combining potent chemotherapy drugs with immunogens to kill cancer cells and trigger lasting immunity. Developing new prodrugs that integrate both chemotherapy and immune-boosting elements could significantly improve anticancer outcomes by activating multiple mechanisms to kill cancer cells. While bacterial polysaccharides are typically not used in therapy due to their immune-stimulating properties, we propose a safe application of an extremophilic bacterial polysaccharide, Mauran (MR), modified with the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5FU) to create a novel prodrug. This obtained prodrug, chloracetyl-MR-5FU, is specifically targeted using gold nanocages to CD133+ glioma cells. Test results have shown a high encapsulation efficiency of the drug during the polysaccharide modification process; its anticancer activity was demonstrated in vitro and the release of the prodrug was demonstrated in ex vivo studies.

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