Super-small zwitterionic micelles enable the improvement of blood-brain barrier crossing for efficient orthotopic glioblastoma combinational therapy

Ke Wang, Bingbing Zhao, Yuli Ao, Jinyu Zhu, Changshun Zhao, Wei Wang, Yan Zou*, Dechun Huang, Yinan Zhong, Wei Chen, Hongliang Qian

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

8 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) remains incurable in clinical, nanotechnology-based drug delivery strategies show promising perspective in alleviating GBM, while limited blood-brain-barrier (BBB) permeation, short blood half-live accompanied by the poor tumor accumulation and penetration, significantly restrict the therapeutic outcomes. Herein, a versatile super-small zwitterionic nano-system (MCB(S)) based on carboxybetaine (CB) zwitterion functionalized hyperbranched polycarbonate (HPCB) is developed to overcome the brain delivery challenges. After grafting with amino-functionalized IR780 (free IR780), the ultimate paclitaxel (PTX)-encapsulated micelles (MCB(S)-IR@PTX) are precisely activated by near-infrared (NIR) for accelerated drug release and effective combinational GBM therapy. Importantly, MCB(S)-IR@PTX with the crosslinked structure and CB zwitterion prolongs blood-circulation, and CB-zwitterion further facilitates BBB-traversing through betaine/γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) transporter-1 (BGT-1) pathway. Combined with the benefit of super small-size, MCB(S)-IR@PTX highly accumulates at tumor sites and penetrates deeply, thus efficiently inhibiting tumor growth and strikingly improving survival time in U87MG orthotopic GBM-bearing mouse model. The ingenious nanoplatform furnishes a versatile strategy for delivering therapeutics into the brain and realizing efficient brain cancer therapy.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)261-271
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of Controlled Release
Volume364
Early online date31 Oct 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2023

Keywords

  • Blood-brain-barrier
  • Combinational therapy
  • Deep tumor penetration
  • Prolonged blood circulation
  • Super-small zwitterionic micelle

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