Biomimetic drug delivery platforms based on mesenchymal stem cells impregnated with light-responsive submicron sized carriers

Synthetic organic and inorganic carriers often meet limitations associated with problematic targeting ability or non-optimized pharmacokinetics, and therefore they have restricted therapeutic potential. Natural drug carriers (e.g. mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs) are able to natural recruitment towards tumor site and migrate through cancerous cells. That makes them attractive delivery platforms to explore their biomimetic features to achieve maximal therapeutic efficiency with minimal toxic side effect. Combination of MSCs with homing effect to tumor with stimuli-responsive nanostructured carriers are foreseen to have huge impact for in the field of personalized oncology where the deployment of drug from career internalized in MSCs is caused by external trigger while the MSCs have been delivered to the site. It minimizes side effects of highly toxic drugs. Here we developed for the first time a light-sensitive biomimetic delivery platform based on MSCs with impregnated submicron sized composite capsules containing antitumor drug. Such cell-mediated delivery system triggers the release of drug upon near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation due to gold nanorods (Au NRs) incorporated into the capsules wall. The NIR-triggered release of the antitumor drug such as vincristine provides the effective mortality of tumor spheroids made of primary tumor melanoma cells. Encapsulated vincristine delivered inside MSCs to tumor and deployed over whole spheroid at upon the NIR exposure represents a promising platform for improved treatment of malignant neoplasms.