Induction and Targeting of the Heat Shock Response in Prostate Cancer

Category

Bioactive Materials: Nanomedicines

Year

2012

Authors

N. Larson A. Gormley,, S. Sadekar R. Robinson,, A. Ray H. Ghandehari-

Institutions

Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Utah Center for Nanomedicine, Nano Institute of Utah, and Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 84108, USA

Summary

This study demonstrates a drug delivery strategy in which: 1) the expression of glucose regulated protein 78 kDa (GRP78, a member of the heat shock protein 70 family of proteins) is specifically induced on the surface of cancer cells, and 2) delivery of a chemotherapeutic agent is enhanced using a polymeric carrier designed to target this induced expression. It is anticipated that such a strategy can increase the specific delivery of chemotherapeutic agents to tumor tissues.