Targeted delivery of coencapsulated drugs can increase
therapeutic
indices of cancers including improved tumor inhibition and safety
profile. However, most cancers lack tumor specific receptors (antigens)
to guide the targeted delivery. Tumoral P-selectin can be rapidly
upregulated after ionization radiation, indicating it is a highly
selective target for drug delivery. In this work, we had fucoidan,
a natural polysaccharide with intrinsic affinity toward P-selectin,
and the chemotherapeutics cisplatin and mitoxantrone coassembled into
a composite nanogel (FCM), and meanwhile exploited its P-selectin
targeted therapeutic potentials in combination with radiotherapy using
a murine breast cancer model. The radiation significantly enhanced
the P-selectin level in tumor and subsequently boosted the cancer-targeted
delivery of FCM. In current FCM, fucoidan not only acted as matrix
for drugs encapsulation but also functioned as targeting ligand, thus
providing a facile and P-selectin targeted codelivery of chemotherapeutics
that could be potentiated by tumor radiation.