Hyaluronic acid-modified selenium nanoparticles for enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of paclitaxel in lung cancer therapy

Targeted delivery of chemotherapeutics by functionalized nanoparticles exhibits a wonderful prospect for cancer treatment. In this paper, selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) was linked with hyaluronic acid (HA) to prepare tumor-targeted delivery vehicle HA-SeNPs, and HA-SeNPs was loaded with paclitaxel (PTX) to fabricate functionalized selenium nanoparticles HA-Se@PTX. HA-Se@PTX showed greater uptake in A549 cells in comparison with that in HUVEC, verifying HA-mediated specific uptake of HA-Se@PTX. HA-Se@PTX was capable of entering A549 cells via clathrin-associated endocytosis and showed faster drug release in cancer cell microenvironment in comparison with normal physiological environment. HA-Se@PTX could obviously inhibit the proliferation, migration and invasion of A549 cells and trigger A549 cells apoptosis. Moreover, active targeting functionalized selenium nanoparticles HA-Se@PTX showed greater <i>in vivo</i> antitumor activity compared with free PTX or passive targeting delivery system Se@PTX. In addition, HA-Se@PTX exhibited negligible toxicity on the major organs of mice. In a word, HA-Se@PTX may develop into a valuable nanoscale antitumor drug agent for lung cancer treatment.