Page - (000364) - in Biomedical Chemistry: Current Trends and Developments

deposited to increase the stability of the system (Deng, 2013). Figure 3.5.6: The co-delivery of siRNA and doxorubicin using the modular doxorubicin- liposome/PLA/siRNA/PLA/HA LbL nanoparticle platform. (A) Schematics of the siRNA- doxorubicin LbL liposomes. (B) Release profile of the two therapeutics components: siRNA and doxorubicin from the LbL liposomal nanoparticles in tissue culture medium over 72 h (n = 3). (C) Evaluation of the siRNA-enhanced cytotoxicity of the combo therapy in MDA-MB-468 cells. The results represent mean ± standard deviation (n = 3; P < 0.05). Reprinted with permission from (Deng, 2013). Another study that combines siRNA and the co-delivery of paclitaxel in a two-in-one micelleplex system showed that it is possible to reduce by hundreds of times the dose of paclitaxel given by associating it with siRNA, and equally achieve a synergistic therapeutic effect (Sun, 2011). This and other systems are able to provide the co-delivery of different drugs and therapeutic classes to the tumor sites in vivo, giving hope to the decrease of harmful side effects of the anticancer drugs. As described before, there are a variety of strategies that can be applied to combine different molecules for treatment of tumor diseases. In addition, there is the possibility that the nanocarrier itself is modified in such a way that it also has some therapeutic activity. Interestingly, the following study combined doxorubicin to the pro-apoptotic effect of the nanocarrier itself by means of incorporation of a sphingolipid C6- ceramide into the liposomal formulation, targeting at the same time nucleolin, a protein that is greatly expressed in cancer and endothelial cells of tumor angiogenic blood vessels (Shi, 2007). In this work, the sinergistic combination of DXR:C6-Cer in a 1:2 molar ratio was identified