Study on anticancer effect of novel nucleolin targeting peptide

Abstract

Cancer has the highest mortality rate cause globally. As the incidence and mortality of cancer patients are expected to increase due to the rapid aging of the population, the development of therapeutic agents for curing cancer is required. Although chemotherapy is the most commonly used anticancer treatment, due to many side effects, a method of reducing the side effects of chemotherapy using cancer-specific ligands is necessary. Cancer-specific ligands are the drug delivery system that can reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and enhance the anticancer effect. Therefore, I synthesized the cancer-specific peptide ligands that have the potential for anticancer therapeutic agents. The purpose of this study is to verify the anticancer effect and mode of action of AGM-330-CPP, which targets intracellular NCL, a novel cancer-specific ligand. I confirmed the tumor metastasis inhibitory effect of AGM-330-CPP in a colorectal cancer xenograft mouse model and in vitro. Thus, it was confirmed that AGM-330-CPP treatment inhibits the metastasis of colon cancer cells by directly downregulating the expression level of VEGFA that is the major growth factor for angiogenesis and metastasis. The anticancer synergistic effect with PTX was also assessed. Above all, AGM-330-CPP directly targets the intracellular NCL and inhibits the metastasis by acting as an inhibitor of VEGFA. These results show that the potential of AGM-330-CPP as an anticancer therapeutic agent and combination therapy with PTX.