A recently developed approach in tumor therapy using Salmonella

There are three main approaches in cancer treatment: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Recently, the use of bioengineered bacteria as therapeutic agents has been shown to have some valuable properties in the treatment of cancer, which do not exist in conventional approaches. Bacteria in particular can target tumors, and they can preferentially proliferate and accumulate within tumors and inhibit the growth of cancer cells by inducing cytotoxicity. Thus, bacteria can be easily detected in tumor sites. Moreover, bacteria-derived factors exert an immunostimulatory effect. Over the past decade, Salmonella, Clostridium, and other bacterial genera have been shown to inhibit tumor growth and promote the survival rate in animal models. Clinical trials for cancer treatment with bacteria have shown improved results by combination with other therapeutic methods such as chemotherapy or radioactive agents. This review is an effort to introduce the use of healthy bacteria in tumor therapy. We specifically focus on Salmonella, which has been extensively used in tumor therapy. Therefore, in this review study, we discuss the merits, mechanisms, and attenuated strains of a combination therapy compared to other therapeutic approaches in Salmonella-mediated cancer therapy

Cholesterol-conjugated bovine serum albumin nanoparticles as a tamoxifen tumor-targeted delivery system

In the present study, we introduced cholesterol (CLO)-conjugated bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (BSA NPs) as a new system for indirect targeting drug delivery. Tamoxifen, as an anticancer drug, was loaded on BSA NPs (BSA-TAX NPs); CLO was then conjugated to the BSA-TAX NPs surface for the targeted delivery of NPs system, by 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide/N-hydroxy succinimide carbodiimide chemistry (CLO-BSA-TAX NPs). The physicochemical properties, toxicity, in vitro, and in vivo biocompatibility of the BSA NPs system were characterized on cancer cell lines (4T1). The results revealed that the BSA NPs system has a regular spherical shape and negative zeta-potential values. The drug release of BSA NPs system has shown controlled and pH-dependent drug release behavior. BSA NPs system was biocompatible but it was potentially toxic on the cancer cell line. The CLO-BSA-TAX NPs exhibited higher toxicity against cancer cell lines than other NPs formulation (BSA NPs and BSA-TAX NPs). It can be concluded that the CLO, as an indirect targeting agent, enhances the toxicity and specificity of NPs system on cancer cell lines. It could potentially be suitable approaches to targeting the tumors in clinical cancer therapy. © 2020 International Federation for Cell Biolog

Hybrid of niosomes and bio-synthesized selenium nanoparticles as a novel approach in drug delivery for cancer treatment

Abstract: The current study intends to investigate a novel drug delivery system (DDS) based on niosomes structure (NISM) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) which was formulated to BSA coated NISM (NISM-B). Also, selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) have been prepared by BSA mediated biosynthesis. Finally, the NISM-B was hybridized with SeNPs and was formulated as NISM-B@SeNPs for drug delivery applications. Physicochemical properties of all samples were characterized by UV�Vis spectroscopy, FT-IR, DLS, FESEM, and EDX techniques. The cytotoxicity of all samples against A549 cell line was assessed by cell viability analysis and flow cytometry for apoptotic cells as well as RT-PCR for the expression of MDR-1, Bax, and Bcl-2 genes. Besides, in vivo biocompatibility was performed by LD50 assay to evaluate the acute toxicity. The proposed formulation has a regular spherical shape and approximately narrow size distribution with proper zeta-potential values; the proposed DDS revealed a good biocompatibility. The compound showed a significant cytotoxic effect against A549 cell line. Although the Bax/Bcl-2 expression ratio was significantly in NISM-B@SeNPs- treated cancer cells, the expression of MDR-1 was non-significantly lower in NISM-B@SeNPs-treated cancer cells. The obtained results suggest that the proposed DDS presents a promising approach for drug delivery, co-delivery and multifunctional biomedicine applications. Graphic abstract: Figure not available: see fulltext. © 2020, Springer Nature B.V