Characterization of synergistic anti-tumor effects of doxorubicin and p53 via graphene oxide-polyethyleneimine nanocarriers

• Published in: Journal of materials science & technology 2017-08, Vol.33 (8), p.807-814
• Main Authors: Xie, Bei, Yi, Jipeng, Peng, Jian, Zhang, Xing, Lei, Lei, Zhao, Dapeng, Lei, Zhixin, Nie, Hemin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Doxorubicin; Graphene oxide; p53; p53基因; Polyethyleneimine; Successive inhibition; π-π堆积作用; 协同; 抗肿瘤作用; 氧化石墨; 纳米载体; 聚乙烯亚胺; 阿霉素
• ISSN: 1005-0302; 1941-1162
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmst.2017.05.005

Co-delivery of chemical drugs and therapeutic genes for synergistic therapy provides a promising strategy to treat devastating diseases. However, the real-time coordination patterns between chemical drugs and therapeutic genes remain poorly understood. Herein, the complexes of doxorubicin/graphene oxidepolyethyleneimine/p53 plasmid（Dox/GO-PEI/p53） were fabricated and employed to investigate the synergistic manner between Dox and p53 in the inhibition of He La cell growth. GO was conjugated with PEI to form the GO-PEI backbone as the delivery vector. The GO backbone provided surfaces with a high specific area to load Dox via the π-π stacking interaction, and was able to release Dox significantly faster at pH 5.0 than at pH 7.0, while the positively charged PEI section of GO-PEI could condense plasmids into GO-PEI/DNA nanoparticles via the electrostatic interaction. The nanoparticles efficiently mediated the transfection of DNA in He La cells, with lower cytotoxicity compared to PEI/DNA nanoparticles. Furthermore, the complexes of Dox/GO-PEI/p53 released Dox and expressed p53 gene in a sequential manner,and showed successive inhibition of the in vitro growth of He La cells. This type of drug/GO-PEI/DNA complex can be employed as a platform to investigate the coordination pattern between chemical drugs and therapeutic genes for tumor therapy.