Engineered Polymeric Micelles for Combinational Oxidation Anticancer Therapy through Concurrent HO-1 Inhibition and ROS Generation

Cancer cells have a large amount of ROS (reactive oxygen species) because of disturbed ROS homeostasis. Cancer cells therefore undertake redox adaptation to drive proliferation in tumor environments and even survive during anticancer treatment by upregulating endogenous antioxidants. As one of antioxidant defense systems, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) acts as an essential role in tumor development by offering antioxidant bilirubin to protect cancer cells under stress conditions. It can be therefore reasoned that the combination of ROS generation and HO-1 inhibition would exert synergistic anticancer effects through the amplification of oxidative stress and provide a new opportunity for targeted anticancer therapy. To establish targeted anticancer therapy based on amplified oxidative stress, we developed molecularly engineered polymer, termed CZP, which incorporates ROS generating CA (cinnamaldehyde) and HO-1 inhibiting ZnPP (zinc protoporphyrin) in its backbone and could form stable micelles in aqueous solutions. CZP micelles not only elevated oxidative stress but also suppressed the expression of antioxidant HO-1, leading to apoptotic cell death. CZP micelles could also significantly suppress the tumor growth without body weight loss, tumor recurrence, and noticeable toxicity in organs. This study demonstrates that a combination of ROS generation and HO-1inhibition synergistically magnifies oxidative stress to kill cancer cells and oxidative stress amplifying CZP micelles may provide a promising strategy in anticancer treatment.