Codelivery of chemotherapeutics via crosslinked multilamellar liposomal vesicles to overcome multidrug resistance in tumor.

Abstract

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a significant challenge to effective cancer chemotherapy treatment. However, the development of a drug delivery system that allows for the sustained release of combined drugs with improved vesicle stability could overcome MDR in cancer cells. To achieve this, we have demonstrated codelivery of doxorubicin (Dox) and paclitaxel (PTX) via a crosslinked multilamellar vesicle (cMLV). This combinatorial delivery system achieves enhanced drug accumulation and retention, in turn resulting in improved cytotoxicity against tumor cells, including drug-resistant cells. Moreover, this delivery approach significantly overcomes MDR by reducing the expression of P-glycoprotein (P-gp) in cancer cells, thus improving antitumor activity in vivo. Thus, by enhancing drug delivery to tumors and lowering the apoptotic threshold of individual drugs, this combinatorial delivery system represents a potentially promising multimodal therapeutic strategy to overcome MDR in cancer therapy.