Nuclear delivery of dual anti-cancer drugs by molecular self-assembly

Nanomedicines generally suffer from poor accumulation in tumor cells, low anti-tumor efficacy, and drug resistance. In order to address these problems, we introduced a novel nanomedicine based on dual anti-cancer drugs, which showed good cell nuclear accumulation properties. The novel nanomedicine consisted of three components: (1) dual anti-cancer drugs, 10-hydroxycamptothecin (HCPT) and chlorambucil (CRB), whose targets are located in the cell nucleus, (2) a nuclear localizing dodecapeptide, PMI peptide (TSFAEYWNLLSP), which could activate p53 by binding with MDM2 and MDMX located in the cell nucleus, and (3) an efficient self-assembling tripeptide FFY. Our nanomedicine exhibited enhanced cellular uptake and nuclear accumulation properties, thus achieving an excellent anti-cancer capacity both in vitro and in vivo. Our study will provide an inspiration for the development of novel multifunctional nanomaterials for cancer diagnosis and therapy.