ORCID Profile
0000-0003-2752-9783
Current Organisation
Monash University Malaysia
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 20-02-2019
DOI: 10.3390/PHARMACEUTICS11020089
Abstract: Inorganic nanoparticles hold great potential in the area of precision medicine, particularly for treating cancer owing to their unique physicochemical properties, biocompatibility and improved pharmacokinetics properties compared to their organic counterparts. Here we introduce strontium sulfite nanoparticles as new pH-responsive inorganic nanocarriers for efficient transport of siRNAs into breast cancer cells. We employed the simplest nanoprecipitation method to generate the strontium sulfite nanoparticles (SSNs) and demonstrated the dramatic roles of NaCl and d-glucose in particle growth stabilization in order to produce even smaller nanosize particles (Na-Glc-SSN) with high affinity towards negatively charged siRNA, enabling it to efficiently enter the cancer cells. Moreover, the nanoparticles were found to be degraded with a small drop in pH, suggesting their potential capability to undergo rapid dissolution at endosomal pH so as to release the payload. While these particles were found to be nontoxic to the cells, they showed higher potency in facilitating cancer cell death through intracellular delivery and release of oncogene-specific siRNAs targeting ros1 and egfr1 mRNA transcripts, than the strontium sulfite particles prepared in absence of NaCl and d-glucose, as confirmed by growth inhibition assay. The mouse plasma binding analysis by Q-TOF LC-MS/MS demonstrated less protein binding to smaller particles of Na-Glc-SSNs. The biodistribution studies of the particles after 4 h of treatment showed Na-Glc-SSNs had less off-target distribution than SSNs, and after 24 h, all siRNAs were cleared from all major organs except the tumors. ROS1 siRNA with its potential therapeutic role in treating 4T1-induced breast tumor was selected for subsequent in vivo tumor regression study, revealing that ROS1 siRNA-loaded SSNs exerted more significant anti-tumor effects than Na-Glc-SSNs carrying the same siRNA following intravenous administration, without any systemic toxicity. Thus, strontium sulfite emerged as a powerful siRNA delivery tool with potential applications in cancer gene therapy.
Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.
Date: 03-09-2014
DOI: 10.2174/1566523214666140612152730
Abstract: Conventional therapies for malignant cancer such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy are associated with poor survival rates owing to the development of cellular resistance to cancer drugs and the lack of targetability, resulting in unwanted adverse effects on healthy cells and necessitating the lowering of therapeutic dose with consequential lower efficacy of the treatment. Gene therapy employing different types of viral and non-viral carriers to transport gene(s) of interest and facilitating production of the desirable therapeutic protein(s) has tremendous prospects in cancer treatments due to the high-level of specificity in therapeutic action of the expressed protein(s) with diminished off-target effects, although cancer cell-specific delivery of transgene(s) still poses some challenges to be addressed. Depending on the potential therapeutic target genes, cancer gene therapy could be categorized into tumor suppressor gene replacement therapy, immune gene therapy and enzyme- or prodrug-based therapy. This review would shed light on the current progress of delivery of potentially therapeutic genes into various cancer cells in vitro and animal models utilizing a variety of viral and non-viral vectors.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2020
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-06-2012
Abstract: RNA interference (RNAi) is a powerful approach in functional genomics to selectively silence messenger mRNA (mRNA) expression and can be employed to rapidly develop potential novel drugs against a complex disease like cancer. However, naked siRNA being anionic is unable to cross the anionic cell membrane through passive diffusion and therefore, delivery of siRNA remains a major hurdle to overcome before the potential of siRNA technology can fully be exploited in cancer. pH-sensitive carbonate apatite has recently been developed as an efficient tool to deliver siRNA into the mammalian cells by virtue of its high affinity interaction with the siRNA and the desirable size distribution of the resulting siRNA-apatite complex for effective cellular endocytosis. Moreover, internalized siRNA was found to escape from the endosomes in a time-dependent manner and efficiently silence gene expression. Here we show that carbonate apatite-mediated delivery of siRNA against PLC-gamma-2 (PLCG2) and calmodulin 1 (CALM1) genes has led to the sensitization of a human cervical cancer cell line to doxorubicin- and paclitaxel depending on the dosage of the in idual drug whereas no such enhancement in cell death was observed with cisplatin irrespective of the dosage following intracellular delivery of the siRNAs. Thus, PLCG2 and CALM1 genes are two potential targets for gene knockdown in doxorubicin and paclitaxel-based chemotherapy of cervical cancer.
No related grants have been discovered for Athirah Bakhtiar.