Selective Activation of Anticancer Chemotherapy by Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts in the Tumor Microenvironment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The tumor microenvironment has recently emerged as a new target of anticancer chemotherapy. Selective activation of anticancer chemotherapy in the tumor microenvironment would further reduce the toxicity of anticancer drugs toward normal tissues. Fibroblast activation protein (FAP) is known to be selectively overexpressed on cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the tumor microenvironment. Here, we designed an anticancer chemotherapeutic system based on promelittin, a peptide toxin that is selectively converted from an inactive form to the pore-forming melittin upon cleavage by FAP in the tumor microenvironment.

Methods

We conjugated promelittin-containing FAP-cleavable sequences to pegylated phospholipids and anchored them to reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosh

SUBMITTER: Kim MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6284259 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature