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Pharmaceutica Analytica Acta | Volume: 09
September 20-22, 2018 Prague, Czech Republic
Pharmaceutics & Drug Delivery Systems
17
th
Annual Congress on
Therapeutic protein-only nanoparticles as targeted antitumoral drugs
Laura Sánchez García, Naroa Serna, Patricia Álamo, Rita Sala, María Virtudes Céspedes, Mònica Roldan, Alejandro Sánchez-Chardi, Ugutz Unzueta,
Isolda Casanova, Ramón Mangues, Esther Vázquez
and
Antonio Villaverde
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain
N
owadays, conventional cancer treatments present high systemic toxicity, leading to side effects on healthy tissues. For
that reason, it is of great relevance to develop targeted drugs that can increase the local drug concentration, minimize
toxic effects on off-target tissues and reduce the dose administered. Moreover, loading capacity and drug leakage from vehicles
during circulation in blood is a major concern when developing nanoparticle-based cell-targeted cytotoxics. To circumvent this
potential issue, it would be convenient the engineering of drugs as self-delivered nanoscale entities, devoid of any heterologous
carriers. In this context, we have engineered potent protein toxins, using the active fragments of the diphtheria toxin and
the Pseudomonas aeruginosa exotoxin, as self-assembling, self-delivered therapeutic materials targeted to CXCR4
+
cancer
stem cells. CXCR4 receptor is overexpressed in a variety of human cancers and plays a critical role in metastatic process. For
this reason, we have fused T22 to the toxic domains (T22-TOXIN-H6), as it is a CXCR4 ligand able to bind specifically and
internalize into the target cells. The systemic administration of both nanostructured drugs in a colorectal cancer xenograft
mouse model promotes efficient and specific local destruction of target tumor tissues and a significant reduction of the tumor
volume. This observation strongly supports the concept of intrinsically functional protein nanoparticles, which having a dual
role as drug and carrier, are designed to be administered without the assistance of heterologous vehicles. The promising results
obtained have allowed the development of a new patent (EP17169722) that has been licensed to Nanoligent SL.
Biography
Laura Sánchez García is a PhD student at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain. She is doing her research in the Nanobiotechnology Group, which is
working in the development of targeted protein-only nanoparticles against cancer stem cells. She has studied her degree in Microbiology and Master’s in Applied
Microbiology. She has published 13 papers in reputed journals and has received an EMBO Fellowship to perform a three-month internship in Slovenia.
laurasanchezgarcia92@gmail.comLaura Sánchez García et al., Pharm Anal Acta 2018, Volume: 9
DOI: 10.4172/2153-2435-C2-037