Knowledge Bank

Cancer treatment has advanced enormously in the past years; however, the number of cancer-related deaths worldwide still continues to rise. There is a great need for safer, more localized drug delivery treatment, as it is currently difficult to deliver large dosages of chemotherapeutic drugs to specific tumor sites without toxic side effects for patients. A nanoparticle approach has proven to be valuable in diminishing drug toxicity due to properties such as size, payload density, duration of effect, and surface targeting. Furthermore, nanoscale carriers have proven to facilitate passive accumulation in tumors via the enhanced permeability and retention effect. We have created a variety of peptide-camptothecin amphiphiles that self-assemble into well-defined nanotubes and fibers, and encapsulate the cytotoxic drug camptothecin. In particular, the lysine amide monopeptide appears to be especially promising due to its simplicity. Aggregation into defined nanostructures has been proven via transmission electron microscopy and circular dichroism scans. To further prove its effectiveness, cytotoxicity tests have been conducted using non-small lung cancer cells with varying levels of Breast Cancer Resistant Protein (BCRP) expression. These cell studies have confirmed the intracellular accumulation of the drug inside the cells and the efficacy in actually killing them. The next steps would be to quantitate the accumulation of the drug in vitro via flow cytometry and to determine its biodistribution in vivo.