A new paper from the Department of Biomedical Polymers in the journal Pharmaceutics
Scientists from the IMC have described the safe and effective delivery of an immunomodulatory agent cucurbitacin-D to solid tumors. The new study of the department of Biomedical Polymers has been published in the journal Pharmaceutics.
The new paper describes the synthesis, physicochemical properties, and biological evaluation of polymer therapeutics based on N-(2-hydroxypropyl)methacrylamide (HPMA) copolymers intended for tumor-targeted immuno-oncotherapy.
„Firstly, we have worked on finding ways to suppress a possible cross-linking of polymer conjugates during the synthesis due to a specific structure of cucurbitacin D. The second hard task was to find a suitable tumor model and the appropriate dosing of the immunomodulatory agent,“ explains Marina R. Tavares, the first author of the paper, who has collaborated with colleagues from the Department of Biomedical Polymers, the Department of NMR Spectroscopy (IMC) and the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Dr. Šírová and coworkers).
In the end, scientists from the IMC have showed the potential of the co-treatment using polymer conjugate with cucurbitacin-D combined with targeted cytotoxic drugs on the treatment of mice with 4T1 mammary carcinoma, which is a rapidly metastasizing cancer model. The research has confirmed that HPMA-based copolymers carrying STAT3 inhibitor cucurbitacin-D in combination with a copolymer carrying anticancer drug can simultaneously kill tumor cells and stimulate the immune system to act against cancer cells.
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