Hyaluronan and calcium carbonate hybrid nanoparticles for colorectal cancer chemotherapy

A hybrid drug delivery system (DDS) composed of hyaluronan and calcium carbonate (CC) was developed. By taking advantage of the tumor-targeting ability of hyaluronan and the drug-loading property of CC, the well-formed hyaluronan–CC nanoparticles were able to serve as a DDS targeting colorectal cancer with a decent drug loading content, which is beneficial in the chemotherapy of colorectal cancer. In this study, hyaluronan–CC nanoparticles smaller than 100 nm were successfully developed to load the wide-range anti-cancer drug adriamycin (Adr) to construct hyaluronan–CC/Adr nanoparticles. On the other hand, we also found that hyaluronan–CC/Adr nanoparticles can possibly increase the uptake ratio of Adr into HT29 colorectal cancer cells when compared with hyaluronan-free nanoparticles (CC/Adr) via the CD44 receptor-mediated endocytosis via competitive uptake and in vivo imaging assays. Note that both in vitro (CCK-8 assay on HT29 cells) and in vivo (anti-cancer assay on HT-29 tumor-bearing nude mice model) experiments revealed that hyaluronan–CC/Adr nanoparticles exhibited stronger anti-cancer activity than free Adr or CC/Adr nanoparticles with minimized toxic side effects and preferable cancer-suppression potential. (paper)