Polysialic acid as a drug carrier: evaluation of a new polysialic acid–epirubicin conjugate and its comparison against established drug carriers

Greco, F., Arif, I., Botting , R., Fante, C., Quintieri, L., Clementi, C., Schiavon, O. and Pasut, G. (2013) Polysialic acid as a drug carrier: evaluation of a new polysialic acid–epirubicin conjugate and its comparison against established drug carriers. Polymer Chemistry, 4. pp. 1600-1609. ISSN 1759-9954 doi: 10.1039/C2PY20876H

Abstract/Summary

This paper explores the potential of polysialic acid (PSA) as a carrier for low molecular weight anticancer drugs. A PSA–epirubicin (Epi) conjugate was synthesized and compared against Epi conjugates containing established carriers, namely: N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide (HPMA) copolymers, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and polyglutamic acid (PGA). Biological assessments in the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and in the anthracycline resistant MCF-7/DX showed that the PSA–Epi conjugate had the highest activity (40% and 30% cell death in the two cell lines at 1 mM Epi equiv., respectively). FACS studies confirmed internalization of all conjugates by cholesterol-dependent endocytosis. PSA–Epi showed release of Epi (40% at 5 h) when incubated with lysosome extracts. In vivo evaluation showed that all conjugates had a significantly longer half-life compared to free Epi. This study also allowed an investigation on the effect of the polymeric carrier on the biological activity of a conjugate, with the biodegradability of the carrier emerging as an important feature.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/30917
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Chemistry, Food and Pharmacy > School of Pharmacy > Pharmaceutics Research Group
Publisher	Royal Society of Chemistry
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