Folate-mediated targeted and intracellular delivery of paclitaxel using a novel deoxycholic acid-O-carboxymethylated chitosan–folic acid micelles

BACKGROUND A critical disadvantage for successful chemotherapy with paclitaxel (PTX) is its nontargeting nature to cancer cells. Folic acid has been employed as a targeting ligand of various anticancer agents to increase their cellular uptake within target cells since the folate receptor is overexpressed on the surface of such tumor cells. In this study, a novel biodegradable deoxycholic acid-O-carboxymethylated chitosan-folic acid conjugate (DOMC-FA) was used to form micelles for encapsulating the anticancer drug PTX. METHODS AND RESULTS The drug-loading efficiency, encapsulation efficiency, in vitro drug release and physicochemical properties of PTX-loaded micelles were investigated in detail. In vitro cell culture studies were carried out in MCF-7 cells, a human breast carcinoma cell line, with folate receptor overexpressed on its surface. An increased level of uptake of folate-conjugated micelles compared to plain micelles in MCF-7 cells was observed, and the enhanced uptake of folate-micelles mainly on account of the effective process of folate receptor-mediated endocytosis. The MTT assay, morphological changes, and apoptosis test implied that the folate-conjugated micelles enhanced the cell death by folate-mediated active internalization, and the cytotoxicity of the FA-micellar PTX (DOMC-FA/PTX) to cancer cells was much higher than micelles without folate (DOMC/PTX) or the commercially available injectable preparation of PTX (Taxol). CONCLUSION Results indicate that the PTX-loaded DOMC-FA micelle is a successful anticancer-targeted drug-delivery system for effective cancer chemotherapy.