UC Davis

Prognosis of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) carries is poor, and no effective therapeutic regimen is yet known. The phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway played a predominant role and may be a promising molecular target for CRPC. However, the toxicity of the dual PI3K inhibitors in clinical trials limits their clinical efficacy for CRPC. To solve this problem, we employed a highly integrated precision nanomedicine strategy to molecularly and physically target CRPC through synergistic effects, enhanced targeted drug delivery efficiency, and reduced unwanted side-effects. Gedatolisib (Ge), a potent inhibitor of PI3K/mTOR, was formulated into our disulfied-crosslinked micelle plateform (NanoGe), which exhibits excellent water solubility, small size (23.25±2 nm), excellent stability with redox stimulus-responsive disintegration, and preferential uptake at tumor sites. NanoGe improved the anti-neoplastic effect of free Ge by 53 times in PC-3M cells and 13 times in C4-2B cells though its enhanced uptake via caveolae- and clathrin-mediated endocytic pathways and the subsequent inhibition of the PI3K/mTOR pathway, resulting in Bax/Bcl-2 dependent apoptosis. In an animal xenograft model, NanoGe showed superior efficacy than free Ge, and synergized with nanoformulated cabazitaxel (NanoCa) as a nanococktail format to achieve a cure rate of 83%. Taken together, our results demonstrate the potency of NanoGe in combination with NanoCa is potent against prostate cancer.