Executive Summary : | Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, with treatment options including chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery, and immunotherapy. Chemotherapy is considered one of the best treatments, but it comes with side effects like nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and toxicity to other organs. To reduce these toxicities, new therapeutic strategies are needed. A targeted delivery system for anticancer therapeutics aims to deliver anticancer agents to cancer cells without affecting non-cancer cells. Exosomes, similar to liposomes, are the body's own cellular product and can interact with cellular membranes and deliver their payload to target cells.
This research aims to use dendritic cell-derived exosomes (DCEX) to deliver anticancer agents in cancer cells to reduce tumor burden. Dendritic cells (DCs) capture antigens and present them to naive T cells for immune response modulation. DC-based immunotherapy has great potential but requires expertise and dedication. The approach uses DC-derived exosomes (DCEX) as a vehicle for delivering anticancer genes and drugs, bypassing the limitations of DC-based therapies. The project hypothesis is linked to previous studies where the MR ligand Spironolactone (SP) was applied to an aqueous liposome as an effective targeting ligand to deliver the anti-cancer gene p53 to overexpressed cancer cells, resulting in target-specific toxicity. The proposed approach conjugates DCEX with the MR ligand Spironolactone to deliver anti-cancer genes. This approach can overcome technical challenges associated with DC-based therapies, as exosome membranes are stable and can be stored in frozen form. |