Despite being the mainstay of cancer treatment, chemotherapy has shown limited efficacy for the treatment of lung metastasis due to ineffective targeting and poor tumor accumulation. Here, we report a highly effective erythrocyte leveraged chemotherapy (ELeCt) platform, consisting of biodegradable drug nanoparticles assembled onto the surface of erythrocytes, to enable chemotherapy for lung metastasis treatment. The ELeCt platform significantly extended the circulation time of the drug nanoparticles and delivered 10-fold higher drug content to the lung compared with the free nanoparticles. In both the early- and late-stage melanoma lung metastasis models, the ELeCt platform enabled substantial inhibition of tumor growth that resulted in significant improvement of survival. Further, the ELeCt platform can be used to deliver numerous approved chemotherapeutic drugs. Together, the findings suggest that the ELeCt platform offers a versatile strategy to enable chemotherapy for effective lung metastasis treatment.
Apomorphine, a dopamine agonist, is a highly effective therapeutic to prevent intermittent off episodes in advanced Parkinson’s disease. However, its short systemic half-life necessitates three injections per day. Such a frequent dosing regimen imposes a significant compliance challenge, especially given the nature of the disease. Here, we report a deep eutectic-based formulation that slows the release of apomorphine after subcutaneous injection and extends its pharmacokinetics to convert the current three-injections-a-day therapy into an every-other-day therapy. The formulation comprises a homogeneous mixture of a deep eutectic solvent choline-geranate, a cosolvent n-methyl-pyrrolidone, a stabilizer polyethylene glycol, and water, which spontaneously emulsifies into a microemulsion upon injection in the subcutaneous space, thereby entrapping apomorphine and significantly slowing its release. Ex vivo studies with gels and rat skin demonstrate this self-emulsification process as the mechanism of action for sustained release. In vivo pharmacokinetics studies in rats and pigs further confirmed the extended release and improvement over the clinical comparator Apokyn. In vivo pharmacokinetics, supported by a pharmacokinetic simulation, demonstrate that the deep eutectic formulation reported here allows the maintenance of the therapeutic drug concentration in plasma in humans with a dosing regimen of approximately three injections per week compared to the current clinical practice of three injections per day.
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