Adipocytes Engineered to Deliver Anticancer Therapeutics

Researchers at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have reengineered adipocytes to reverse their malignant role in tumor development and deliver cancer-fighting drugs directly to the tumor microenvironment. Results of their research were published today in Matter. 

In order to stop cancer from recurring, drugs need to be delivered directly to the diseased site. Since fat cells are widely present in the human body and can be easily isolated and purified, the UCLA-led team thought adipocytes might be able to serve as a highly efficient drug delivery system. Although, tumor cells trigger the fat cells to release the fatty acid to support tumor growth, the team added anticancer therapeutics to fat cells to make them work as a Trojan horse once delivered into the tumor site.

The team tested the new drug delivery system by using fat cells engineered to carry lipid-linked doxorubicin and found the drug was able to successfully load into the lipid droplets consisting of an anticancer fatty acid within the fat cells. Linking the fat-soluble lipid molecule to doxorubicin can help reduce toxicity of the drug toward fat cells and enhance drug-loading capability inside the fat cells. Once injected, the encapsulated anticancer doxorubicin and fatty acid can be gradually released toward the tumor cells through lipid metabolism, subsequently inhibiting tumor growth and recurrence.

By utilizing fat cells with a therapeutic capsule, the team was able to demonstrate that the lipid metabolism pathway can be utilized for tumor-specific drug delivery and drug development. The approach could not only be useful for delivering cancer drugs to tumors, but could potentially be applied to other lipid metabolism-related diseases.