New drug loaded particles effectively improve the content of berberine in tumor cells

Liver cancer is a terrible and fatal disease, with an average of nearly one million people dying of liver cancer every year Chemotherapy is a common adjuvant treatment for postoperative patients, and it also provides an effective treatment for patients who can not operate Therefore, chemotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of liver cancer However, due to the problem of drug resistance, the therapeutic effect of chemotherapeutic drugs used in clinic is not ideal Moreover, due to the lack of specificity of traditional chemotherapy, patients suffer a series of side effects such as abdominal pain, ascites, nausea and vomiting, jaundice and so on Therefore, it is urgent to develop new chemotherapy drugs to improve the therapeutic effect of liver cancer and reduce the systemic toxicity in the process of treatment In recent years, some traditional Chinese herbal medicines have attracted the attention of scientists because of their unique biological activities Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid, which is extracted from the rhizome of Phellodendron Coptidis and has a wide range of pharmacological effects In traditional Chinese medicine, it is often used to treat gastrointestinal diseases With the development of research on berberine, scientists have found that berberine has a good antitumor effect Berberine can inhibit the expression of phospholipase (cPLA2) and cyclooxygenase (COX) - 2 in hepatoma cells, and up regulate the ratio of AA to prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), then induce apoptosis induced by apoptosis inducing factor (AIF), kill tumor cells and inhibit cancer recurrence In addition, berberine has lower toxicity to normal tissues Therefore, berberine has an excellent prospect in the treatment of cancer However, poor gastrointestinal absorption and low bioavailability limit the further clinical use of berberine Therefore, it is very important to develop efficient drug carriers to improve the content of berberine in tumor cells Characterization of the morphology and properties of Janus type magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (source: Chemical Biology & Drug Design) Recently, Wang Zheng, a researcher of Dong Wenfei research group of Suzhou Institute of biomedical engineering technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a kind of nanoparticles Janus type magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles Berberine loaded on the particles can increase the content of berberine in tumor cells, and further enhance the anti-tumor effect of berberine through the effect of external magnetic field Janus type magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles have the advantages of stable physical and chemical properties, low toxicity, good biocompatibility and strong modifiability Compared with the traditional spherical core-shell structure of the magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles, Janus type of the magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles, due to the particularity of the structure, will not interfere with each other in the function of the magnetic head and the mesoporous rod, showing a high saturation magnetization and at the same time has the characteristics of large drug carrying capacity and strong endocytosis Therefore, it is very suitable for the carrier of chemotherapy drugs Through experiments, the research group of Janus type magnetic mesoporous silica nanoparticles in endocytosis of tumor cells (source: Chemical Biology & Drug Design) explored the application value of Janus type magnetic mesoporous silica as berberine drug carrier The results show that the nanoparticles have uniform morphology, high magnetic properties and excellent mesoporous properties In liver cancer cells and normal cells, the empty nanoparticles showed low toxicity and excellent endocytosis When berberine was loaded on the nanoparticles, its 24-hour drug loading was as high as 20.7%, and it showed the characteristics of pH responsive drug release Compared with berberine alone, the same dose of magnetic mesoporous berberine showed a stronger killing effect on liver cancer cells, while for human normal cells, the toxicity of magnetic mesoporous berberine was lower Interestingly, under the effect of external magnetic field, the inhibitory effect of the nano drug carrier on human hepatoma cells is further enhanced, but the effect on normal cells is not obvious The researchers studied the mechanism of this phenomenon by confocal microscopy, and found that the amount of berberine in the magnetic mesoporous berberine group was significantly higher than that in the pure berberine group, while the amount of berberine in the external magnetic field group was the most In normal cells, the amount of berberine released by the nano drug delivery system was significantly less than that of berberine alone This selective release explains the high efficiency and low toxicity of the nano drug delivery system Paper link: http://onlinelibrary.willey.com/doi/10.1111/cbdd.12866/full