Cancer-specific drug delivery represents an attractive approach to preventing undesirable side effects and increasing the accumulation of the drug in tumors. The surface modification of selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) with targeting moieties thus represents an effective strategy for cancer therapy. In this study, SeNPs were modified with folic acid (FA), whose receptors were overexpressed on the surface of cancer cells, including human cervical carcinoma HeLa cells, to fabricate tumor-targeting delivery carrier FA-SeNPs nanoparticles. Then, the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) was loaded onto the surface of the FA-SeNPs for improving the antitumor efficacy of DOX in human cervical carcinoma therapy. The chemical structure characterization of FA-Se@DOX showed that DOX was successfully loaded to the surface of FA-SeNPs to prepare FA-Se@DOX nanoparticles. FA-Se@DOX exhibited significant cellular uptake in human cervical carcinoma HeLa cells (folate receptor overexpressing cells) in comparison with lung cancer A549 cells (folate receptor deficiency cells), and entered HeLa cells mainly by the clathrin-mediated endocytosis pathway. Compared to free DOX or Se@DOX at the equivalent dose of DOX, FA-Se@DOX showed obvious activity to inhibit HeLa cells' proliferation and induce the apoptosis of HeLa cells. More importantly, FA-Se@DOX could specifically accumulate in the tumor site, which contributed to the significant antitumor efficacy of FA-Se@DOX in vivo. Taken together, FA-Se@DOX may be one novel promising drug candidate for human cervical carcinoma therapy.
Keywords: doxorubicin; folic acid; human cervical carcinoma; nanoparticles; tumor targeting.