Macrophage mediated biomimetic delivery system for the treatment of lung metastasis of breast cancer

The biomimetic delivery system (BDS) based on special types of endogenous cells like macrophages and T cells, has been emerging as a novel strategy for cancer therapy, due to its tumor homing property and biocompatibility. However, its development is impeded by complicated construction, low drug loading or negative effect on the cell bioactivity. The present report constructed a BDS by loading doxorubicin (DOX) into a mouse macrophage-like cell line (RAW264.7). It was found that therapeutically meaningful amount of DOX could be loaded into the RAW264.7 cells by simply incubation, without significantly affecting the viability of the cells. Drug could release from the BDS and maintain its activity. RAW264.7 cells exhibited obvious tumor-tropic capacity towards 4T1 mouse breast cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo, and drug loading did not alter this tendency. Importantly, the DOX loaded macrophage system showed promising anti-cancer efficacy in terms of tumor suppression, life span prolongation and metastasis inhibition, with reduced toxicity. In conclusion, it is demonstrated that the BDS developed here seems to overcome some of the main issues related to a BDS. The DOX loaded macrophages might be a potential BDS for targeted cancer therapy. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.