Targeting High Expressed α₅β₁ Integrin in Liver Metastatic Lesions To Resist Metastasis of Colorectal Cancer by RPM Peptide-Modified Chitosan-Stearic Micelles

Liver metastasis is a leading death cause in colorectal cancer. The pathological differences between orthotopic tumors and metastatic lesions increased the therapeutic difficulty of metastasis. Herein, the α₅β₁ integrin receptor expression on metastatic cells was first measured, the result showed that metastatic cells expressed the α₅β₁ integrin higher than that of the original cells from orthotopic tumors. Afterward, RPM peptide-modified chitosan-stearic (RPM-CSOSA) was designed based on α₅β₁ integrin expression. The cytotoxicity and resistance to migration and the invasion ability of the targeting drug delivery system loading doxorubicin (DOX) and curcumin (CUR) were evaluated in vitro. The metastatic inhibition of the targeting drug delivery system was also investigated in HT29 liver metastatic models. The modified RPM peptide could increase the cellular internalization of CSOSA micelles in metastatic tumor cells and endothelial cells mediated by α₅β₁ integrin. The synergistic effects of RPM-CSOSA/DOX and RPM-CSOSA/CUR could obviously inhibit migratory and invasive abilities of HT29 cells and endothelial cells. Moreover, the RPM-CSOSA/DOX&RPM-CSOSA/CUR could obviously decrease the number of metastatic sites by 86.96%, while CSOSA/DOX&CSOSA/CUR decreased liver metastasis by 66.58% compared with that in the saline group. In conclusion, the RPM peptide-modified drug delivery system may provide insights into targeting the metastatic cells overexpressing the α₅β₁ integrin, and it has the potential to inhibit liver metastasis of colorectal cancer