Genetically Engineered Nanohyaluronidase Vesicles: A Smart Sonotheranostic Platform for Enhancing Cargo Penetration of Solid Tumors

Precise anti-cancer therapy is hampered by aberrant tumor microenvironments (TME), which include the important features of the dense tumor extracellular matrix (ECM) and hypoxia. The capability of hyaluronidase (HAase) to degrade hyaluronic acid (HA), the main component of ECM, can prompt its rapid development in sonotherapeutics aimed at regulating the microenvironment. In this study, the authors design a bioengineering-based smart enzymatic nanovesicle mHAase combined with purpurin 18 (P18) to form mHAase@nP18 that naturally anchors native HAase to the matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) cleavable peptide. This nanovesicle system demonstrates a high expression of HAase and drug loading capability of the sonosensitizer, purpurin 18, for dual-mode fluorescence/photoacoustic imaging-guided sonodynamic therapy (SDT). Notably, mHAase@nP18 shows enhanced enzyme stability and activity in comparison to free HAase owing to avoidance of the protein crown shield; meanwhile, the released HAase causes a further elevation of its activity for SDT in an MMP-2-dependent manner. In vitro and in vivo results indicate the mHAase@nP18 can greatly enhance tumor penetration and alleviate hypoxia via HA degradation, further causing a heightened SDT effect. This work provides a promising strategy of stimuli-responsive bioengineering of cell membrane vesicles for effective TME modulation and enhanced therapeutic results.

Automated summary

This study presents a bioengineering-based smart enzymatic nanovesicle system, mHAase@nP18, which degrades the main component of tumor microenvironment hyaluronic acid (HA) to enhance tumor penetration and alleviate hypoxia, leading to enhanced sonodynamic therapy (SDT) effect.