Anticancer drug encapsulated in inorganic lattice can overcome drug resistance

A methotrexate (MTX)-layered double hydroxide (LDH) hybrid have been developed as a drug delivery system, in which an anticancer drug, MTX, was intercalated into a 2-dimensional LDH nanovehicle to form a nanohybrid. According to the comparative cell viability studies between MTX only and its LDH nanohybrid on MTX sensitive and resistant cell culture lines, it was found that the MTX-LDH nanohybrid could bypass the MTX resistance and eventually inhibit cancer cell proliferation very effectively compared to free MTX, due to an enhanced permeability and retention effect of MTX-LDH nanoparticles even in dihydrofolate reductase-overexpressing MTX-resistant cells. This is definitely associated with the uptake mechanism via a clathrin-mediated endocytic pathway for the MTX-LDH nanohybrid particles, the same as for the LDH nanocarrier only, which is completely different from the cellular uptake mechanism for MTX only, the reduced folate carrier (RFC) and/or the folate receptor entries.