Nature Communications (Mar 2021)

Tumor-penetrating therapy for β5 integrin-rich pancreas cancer

  • Tatiana Hurtado de Mendoza,
  • Evangeline S. Mose,
  • Gregory P. Botta,
  • Gary B. Braun,
  • Venkata R. Kotamraju,
  • Randall P. French,
  • Kodai Suzuki,
  • Norio Miyamura,
  • Tambet Teesalu,
  • Erkki Ruoslahti,
  • Andrew M. Lowy,
  • Kazuki N. Sugahara

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21858-1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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The iRGD tumor-penetrating peptide can achieve tumor specific drug delivery but whether and how it can penetrate into desmoplastic tumors is unknown. Here, the authors show that β5 integrin expression on tumor cells, mediated by CAFs-derived TGF-β, is required for iRGD penetration into the desmoplastic PDAC microenvironment and that iRGD-based combination therapy is effective in PDAC mouse models.