Targeted drug delivery has been an important issue for tumor therapy including photodynamic therapy (PDT). Folate receptor (FA) is over-expressed on the surface of many human cancer cells. Recently, a research published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC) has reported FA-targeted nanoparticles carrying a photosensitizer (PS) for PDT of cancer. The nanoparticles were prepared from DSPE-MPEG and DSPE-PEG5K-folate (Nanosoft Polymers) . The nanoparticles were highlighted with 1) Folate-modified PLGA nanoparticles (FA-PLGA-Pba NPs) were developed with non-toxic materials. 2) FA-PLGA-Pba NPs were stable in aqueous condition for long time without aggregation. 3) FA-PLGA-Pba NPs killed cancer cells effectively upon laser irradiation, and showed superior tumor-targeting in vivo. In vivo and ex vivo imaging showed high accumulation of FA-PLGA-Pba NPs in tumor site during 24 h after intravenous injection to MKN28 tumor-bearing mice model. These results demonstrate that our FA-PLGA-Pba NPs are useful for tumor-targeted delivery of PS for cancer treatment by PDT. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2018 Apr 6;498(3):523-528. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.03.013. Epub 2018 Mar 5.
