Co-delivery of doxorubicin and small interfering RNA with genipin-cross-linked iron (III) oxide-polyetherimide nanoparticles for combined cancer therapy

To solve the problem of tumor multidrug resistance in cancer therapy, a new drug delivery system of genipin-cross-linked iron (III) oxide/polyetherimide nanoparticles was used to load doxorubicin and small interfering RNA for combined cancer therapy. The results showed that the drug loading and encapsulation efficiency of doxorubicin could reach 45.39% and 52.18%, respectively. Doxorubicin released from iron (III) oxide-polyetherimide-doxorubicin is about 40% in the first day and 95% in 14 days. When loading doxorubicin and small interfering RNA, small interfering RNA could be absorbed completely. Besides, small interfering RNA could strengthen the anticancer effect when iron (III) oxide-polyetherimide-doxorubicin/small interfering RNA was used for in vitro HeLa cell combined treatment, and the effect of combination group was better than that of the group with doxorubicin alone. In addition, the toxicity of iron (III) oxide-polyetherimide was low when examined by the Alamar Blue assay. Therefore, our results reveal that this new system has potential applications in the future drug combination therapy, especially in the combined targeting drug delivery field.