Although the use of nanotechnology for the delivery of a wide range of medical treatments has potential to reduce adverse effects associated with drug therapy, tissue-specific delivery remains challenging. Here we show that nanoparticles made of grapefruit-derived lipids, which we call grapefruit-derived nanovectors, can deliver chemotherapeutic agents, short interfering RNA, DNA expression vectors and proteins to different types of cells. We demonstrate the in vivo targeting specificity of grapefruit-derived nanovectors by co-delivering therapeutic agents with folic acid, which in turn leads to significantly increasing targeting efficiency to cells expressing folate receptors. The therapeutic potential of grapefruit-derived nanovectors was further demonstrated by enhancing the chemotherapeutic inhibition of tumour growth in two tumour animal models. Grapefruit-derived nanovectors are less toxic than nanoparticles made of synthetic lipids and, when injected intravenously into pregnant mice, do not pass the placental barrier, suggesting that they may be a useful tool for drug delivery. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
CITATION STYLE
Wang, Q., Zhuang, X., Mu, J., Deng, Z. B., Jiang, H., Xiang, X., … Zhang, H. G. (2013). Delivery of therapeutic agents by nanoparticles made of grapefruit-derived lipids. Nature Communications, 4. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2886
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