Han Liao,1,2 Shan Zhao,1,2 Huihui Wang,1,2 Yang Liu,1 Ying Zhang,1 Guangwei Sun1

1Scientific Research Center for Translational Medicine, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, Peoples Republic of China; 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, Peoples Republic of China

Correspondence: Guangwei SunScientific Research Center for Translational Medicine, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian 116023, Peoples Republic of ChinaTel/Fax +86-411-82463027Email sungw@dicp.ac.cn

Background: Amphiphilic fusion drugs are covalent conjugates of a lipophilic drug and a hydrophilic drug or their active fragments. These carrier-free self-assembly nanomaterials are helpful to co-deliver two synergic drugs to the same site regardless of pharmacokinetic properties of individual drugs. Retinoic hydroxamic acid (RHA) is a fusion drug of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and vorinostat, a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor showing synergic effect with ATRA on cancer therapy. Although RHA was synthesized in 2005, its nanoscale self-assembly property, anticancer activity, and possible related mechanism are still unclear.Methods: RHA nanoparticles were observed under transmission electron microscope (TEM). Both in vitro cell viability, colony formation assay, and in vivo xenograft mouse tumor model were employed here to study anticancer activity of RHA nanoparticles. The putative synergic anticancer mechanism of activating retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and inhibiting HDAC were investigated via receptor inhibitor rescue assay and in vitro enzyme activity assay, respectively.Results: RHA could form nanoparticle formation by self-assembly and abrogates growth of several solid tumor cell lines even after RHA nanoparticles washout. However, opposite to our initial hypothesis, pre-treating the melanoma cells with RAR antagonists showed no impact on inhibitory effect of RHA nanoparticles, which suggested that the target of the molecule on melanoma cells is not RAR and retinoid X receptor (RXR). Importantly, RHA nanoparticles inhibited the growth of xenograft tumors without obvious impact on haematological indexes and hepatorenal function of these tumor-bearing mice.Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate the promise of RHA nanoparticles in treating malignant melanoma tumors with high efficacy and low toxicity.

Keywords: nano-drugs, self-assembly, retinoid, cancer therapy, melanoma

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Self-Assembly Of Retinoid Nanoparticles For Melanoma Therapy | IJN - Dove Medical Press