Abstract
In recent years, progress on biotechnology and nanotechnology has facilitated a rapid development of innovative multifunctional platforms in applications of biomedical therapy. The design of environmental-responsive nanocarriers on the basis of lipid-encapsulated nanoparticles is particularly promising for targeted delivery and controlled drug release in cancer research. In this report, we describe the synthesis of doxorubicin (Dox) conjugated 13-nm gold nanoparticles (pDox-Au NPs), which exhibited a pH-responsive drug release profile, followed by the modification of multiple aptamers, T30-sgc8c, with the capability to recognize protein tyrosine kinase 7 (PTK7) on leukemia human T cell lymphoblast-like (CCRF-CEM) cell line. Furthermore, lipid-encapsulation was achieved by trapping the nanoparticles, sgc8c/pDox-Au NPs within the biocompatible assembled lipid, which constituted 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) and 1-myristoyl-2-hydroxy -sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (MHPC). The lipid layer of AL:sgc8c/pDox-Au NPs, was characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and DiI probe. Flow cytometric, atomic absorption spectroscopic, fluorescence microscopic, dark field microscopic, confocal microscopic and MTT assay also describe the specific interactions between AL:sgc8c/pDox-Au NPs and CCRF-CEM cells. Overall, a gold-based drug nanocarrier with nonthiol containing phospholipid was successfully established to improve the therapeutic efficacy in tumor cells. The pH-responsiveness was furthermore, highly promising for precise drug releasing in targeted drug delivery.