机构:[1]Department of Gynecology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, 7 Rehabilitation Front Street, Zhengzhou 450052, China.[2]Department of Center for Clinical Single Cell Biomedicine, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, People's Hospital of Zhengzhou University, No. 7 Weiwu Street, Zhengzhou 450003, China.[3]Department of Light Chemical Engineering, School of Textiles, Zhongyuan University of Technology, No. 41 Zhongyuan Road (M), Zhengzhou 450007, China.[4]Department of Orthopedics, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, No.45 Changchun Street, Beijing 100053, China.外科系统骨科首都医科大学宣武医院
Platinum (Pt)-based chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin are the first line and core options for the treatment of ovarian cancer (OC), while cisplatin resistance has a worse prognosis and low 5 year survival rate for patients. Chemotherapeutic drugs synthesized from nanomaterials have shown great potential in biomedicine; however, research into their application for OC resistance is rarely discussed. This study is proposed to elucidate the anti-tumor effects of polyethylenimine (PEI)-caged platinum nanoclusters (Pt NCs) on cisplatin-resistant OC. The results of confocal microscopy showed that Pt NCs entered cisplatin-resistant OC cells dose-dependently and aggregated both in the cytoplasm and inside the nucleus. Subsequently, according to the results of CCK8 assay, wound healing assay, clone formation assay, Transwell assay, Ki-67 immunofluorescence assay, and flow cytometry assay, the proliferation and migration of cisplatin-resistant OC cells were inhibited by Pt NCs, as well as their apoptosis was promoted. In addition, we validated the anti-tumor effect of Pt NCs on regulating autophagy via monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining, transmission electron microscopy observation of the autophagic ultrastructure, LC3-II-GFP and P62-GFP adenovirus single-label immunofluorescence, and western blotting; meanwhile, the role of Pt NCs in adjusting autophagy through modulation of the PI3K-AKT-mTOR signaling was verified. Based on these results, it appears that cisplatin-resistant OC cells can undergo apoptosis when Pt NCs activate autophagy by inhibiting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway, exhibiting a promising potential of Pt NCs in the development of a novel chemotherapeutic agent for patients suffering from cisplatin-resistant OC.