Physical Poster + E-Poster Presentation 34th Lorne Cancer Conference 2022

Plant-derived extracellular nanovesicle as a multifunctional nanocarrier targeting cancer cells (#212)

Tuong Nguyen 1 2 , Shweta Patel 1 2 , Rocky Chowdhury 1 2 , Cuong Pham 1 2 , Phuong Tran 1 2 , Wei Duan 1 2
  1. School of Medicine, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, Australia
  2. Institute of Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation (IMPACT), Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, Australia

Effective delivery system plays a vital role in cancer therapeutic strategy. An ideal carrier should meet the requirements of safety, effectiveness, and optimal bioavailability. Recently, extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been emerging as a promising nanocarrier for drug delivery due to their ability to carry various cargo types including DNA, RNA, lipids, proteins, receptors, and biomolecules to distant organs through the circulatory systems such as blood and lymphatic vessels. We are developing a novel plant-derived extracellular nanovesicles (PDENs) as multifunctional nanocarrier targeting cancer cells due to its safety profile and cost-effectiveness. We will also explore the potential of developing this platform as a novel carrier for edible immunogenic cancer vaccine, as the PDENs possess an immune-modulating capacity. Curcumin is a poorly water-soluble drug that exhibits anti-cancer effect and serves as adjuvant cancer therapy. Curcumin was loaded into PDENs to achieve a combinatorial effect of immune-modulating and cancer cell killing. The results showed that PDENs possessed high (up to ~93%) encapsulation efficiency towards curcumin. Such an encapsulation rate is remarkable because the current loading efficiency of EVs for curcumin is only 18 – 24 % by conventional incubation method[1]. Thus, this system demonstrates the highest encapsulation efficiency compared with any other drug delivery platforms using nano-sized vesicles utilised conventional incubation method. More excitingly, the ability of our novel PDENs to survive the harsh environment in the digestive system makes them a very promising drug delivery system for the personalized precision oncology in the 21st century.

  1. Aqil, F., et al., Exosomes for the enhanced tissue bioavailability and efficacy of curcumin. The AAPS journal, 2017. 19(6): p. 1691-1702.