A self-assembling CXCR4-targeted pyroptosis nanotoxin for melanoma therapy. (6th February 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhao, Zheng; Huang, Yingbin; Wang, Jing; Lin, Hongsheng; Cao, Fei; Li, Shuxin; Li, Yin; Li, Ziqian; Liu, Xuekui
• Is Part Of: Biomaterials science. Volume 11:Number 6(2023)
• Page Start: 2200
• Page End: 2210
• Publication Date: 2023-02-06
• Subjects: Biomedical materials -- Periodicals; 610.28
• DOI: 10.1039/d2bm02026b
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2047-4830

Abstract

Abstract : The self-assembling nanotoxin T22-PE24 that specifically targets CXCR4 was designed to selectively deliver the cytotoxic toxin PE24 to treat CXCR4 + melanoma via activating caspase 3/GSDME pathways in which initially "cold" tumors will become "hot". Abstract : While immunotherapy has emerged as a promising strategy to treat melanoma, the limited availability of immunotherapeutic agents in tumors due to the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment dampens its efficacy. Pyroptosis is a gasdermin-mediated programmed necrosis that triggers the inflammatory tumor microenvironment and enhances the efficacy of tumor immunotherapy. Here, we prove that the CXCR4 antagonist T22 peptide specially targeted and became internalized into CXCR4 + melanoma cells. Then we report a self-assembling nanotoxin that can be used to spatiotemporally target CXCR4-expression melanoma cells and enable tunable cellular pyroptosis. Specific activation of caspase 3 signal transduction triggers gasdermin-E-mediated pyroptosis. This nanotoxin induces pyroptotic cell death resulting in enhanced antitumor efficacy and minimized systemic side effects toward melanoma in vivo . This study offers new insights into how to engineer nanotoxins with tunable pyroptosis activity through specifically targeting CXCR4 for biomedical applications.