Out-of-the-Box Nanocapsules Packed with On-Demand Hydrophobic Anticancer Drugs for Lung Targeting, Esterase...

Most anticancer drugs, particularly paclitaxel (PTX), are suffering the challenges of cancer chemotherapy due to their poor water-solubility, high toxicity under effective therapeutic dosages, and multi-drug resistance. Currently, nanoscale drug delivery systems (DDSs) represent an efficient platform to overcome the above challenges. However, those DDSs generally need a careful design of conjugation, complexation, or co-self-assembly. Herein, a facile out-of-the-box nanocapsule is developed not only to be easily packed with on-demand hydrophobic anticancer drugs (up to 76% of loading efficiency for PTX), but also to be loaded with other concomitant drugs for synergy therapy (Itraconazole (ITA) here as P-glycoprotein inhibitor for drug resistance and antiangiogenic agent for combination therapy with PTX). Three kinds of biocompatible poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylates (PEGDM) derivatives usually as cross-linking agents are selected and successfully constructed adequate nanocapsules with single monomer as shell materials. More importantly, as-prepared nanocapsules have abilities of esterase triggering and lung targeting. Both in vitro and in vivo studies showed that the drug-loaded nanocapsules can effectively inhibit tumor growth and vascular proliferation in PTX-resistant tumor models without apparent systemic toxicity. The above results demonstrate that the nanocapsule system provides an effective and universal strategy for lung targeting, esterase triggering, and synergy therapy.