Mixed dendrimer micelles for siRNA and rifamycin SV co-delivery in tumor cells

Abstract

Cancer is a common and frequently occurring disease which seriously endangers human health, placing severe burden on economic and social development around the world. Thus, scientific community is always searching for alternatives for cancer treatment, searching for new drugs, promoting drug repositioning, or even developing new therapeutic methods and drug delivery systems. Rifamycin is a well-known antibiotic, that inhibits RNA synthesis and probably can be explored as cytotoxic agent. Another promising strategy in cancer treatment is the use o small interfering RNA (siRNA). Among drug delivery systems, mixed dendrimer micelles (MDM) are of interest, since poly(amidoamine) structures can complex siRNA, while poorly soluble drugs are encapsulated in their hydrophobic core. Thus, our goal is to investigate rifamycin SV potential as antitumor drug, to develop MDM system for simultaneous delivery rifamycin SV and siRNA in tumor cells, and to examine the effect of this dendrimer based nanoformulation. (AU)