Abstract
The combination of two different types of chemotherapeutic drugs via nanocarriers
is emerged as a promising strategy for treating multiple cancers. Such a co-delivery
system will synchronize the drug exposure and synergize the therapeutic effects. Herein,
we prepared a paclitaxel (PTX) and gemcitabine (GEM)-loaded N-succinyl chitosan nanoparticles
(NSC NP) to target colon cancer. NSC NP showed a pH sensitive swelling at colonic
pH and exhibited a sequential release pattern for both the drugs. Binary drug combination
exhibited a synergistic cytotoxicity against HT-29 colon cancer cells with a remarkable
G2/M phase arrest. Specifically, in vivo antitumor efficacy study showed that NSC
NP prolonged the survival time of tumor-bearing mice up to 45 days wherein 50% of
mice were still alive. Therefore, these results suggest that co-delivery of drugs
with a suitable delivery system could potentially improve the therapeutic efficacy
in colon cancers. The study can be further continued by using different types of chemotherapeutic
drugs that targets different molecular targets using pH-sensitive nanocarriers.
Key words
combinational drug - pH sensitivity - nanoparticles - colon cancer - chemotherapeutic
efficacy