Thermosensitive magnetic liposomes for dual targeted stimuli-responsive drug delivery in glioma treatment

Irinotecan, sold under the brand name Camptosar (CPT-11), can be used as a brain cancer medication. In current cancer therapies, an important problem in the treatment of cancer is in short of selective targeting, which can damage healthy tissues while only killing cancer cells minimally. Therefore, innovative targeting strategies designed to increase cancer selectivity while preventing or minimizing accumulation in healthy tissues are needed. The anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibody, cetuximab (CET), specifically binds the EGFR with a high affinity. The EGFR is concomitantly over-expressed by most brain tumors, but not by normal tissues. Ligand-mediated targeting could improve both biodistribution and tumor accumulation of chemotherapeutic nanodrugs to result in higher therapeutic efficacy. Accumulation of a drug within the brain tumor environment could be also achieved by external magnetic field-induced guidance technology where an external magnetic field placed near the brain tumor attracts a magnetic­fluid­loaded liposomal system after intravenous administration. Additionally, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) loaded into thermosensitive liposomes can transform electromagnetic energy from an external high-frequency field into a source of heat. This ability to create heat under this proposed alternating magnetic field (AMF) makes magnetic nanomaterials a supreme heat source for biomedical uses such as cancer thermo-ablative treatment and remote control of drug release. In this study, we engineered a multifunctional drug delivery system for the treatment of brain cancer by combining magnetic features with ligand-mediated and thermal-triggered drug release features.