Iranian researcher develop cancer-resistant nanoparticles

They used nanoparticles of cationic liposome in their project. Seyed Amir Jalali and his colleagues in Immunology Department, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences developed a component which activates the body’s immune system against an important caner marker, Her2/neu. It would find wide applications in pharmaceutical industry especially in developing of medications for breast, ovarian, and lung cancers.

The research group designed the mice oncogene peptides and investigated the effect of peptides encapsulated in liposome-polycation-DNA complex (LPD) nanoparticles to induce immunity in BALB/c mice.

“We first designed, thanks to bioinformatics, immunogenic peptides from Her2/neu; then it was encapsulated by liposome-polycation-DNA complex (LPD) nanoparticles and injected to mice tumors, and examined the size of tumor,” Jalali said.

“These peptides survive enzymic activity of proteases and since nanoparticles are cationic, they are delivered in an improved manner to dendritic cells,” he asserted, and that “peptides encapsulated in this manner are used in far less doses than when it is injected freely.”

Jalali also said that they found that peptides induced a strong immune response against cancer markers, still stronger when encapsulated in liposome.