Investigators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, USA) designed drug-carrying nanoparticles based on liposomes that were capable of seeking out and binding to sulfur-containing molecules on immune T-cell surface membranes. To achieve maximal immune stimulation, the nanoparticles were loaded with interleukins 15 and 21 (IL-15 and IL-21).
A paper published in the August 15, 2010, online edition of the journal Nature Medicine described a study in which the investigators injected packets comprising about 100 nanoparticle-coated T-cells into mice with lung and bone marrow tumors. Upon reaching the site of the tumors, the nanoparticles gradually degraded and released their load of drugs over a seven-day period.
The drugs attached to receptors on the surface of T-cells in the area and stimulated them to grow and divide. These activated cells destroyed the tumors within 16 days, and the treated mice survived until the end of the 100-day experiment. Mice that received no treatment died within 25 days, and mice that received either T-cells alone or T-cells with injections of interleukins died within 75 days.
"There are lots of people studying nanoparticles for drug delivery, especially in cancer therapy, but the vast majority of nanoparticles injected intravenously go into the liver or the spleen. Less than 5% percent reach the tumor,” said senior author Dr. Darrell J. Irvine, associate professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "What we're looking for is the extra nudge that could take immune-cell therapy from working in a subset of people to working in nearly all patients, and to take us closer to cures of disease rather than slowing progression.”
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