Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

Dual Delivery Systems Based On Polyamine Analog Benspm As Prodrug And Gene Delivery Vectors, Yu Zhu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Combination drug and gene therapy shows promise in cancer treatment. However, the success of such strategy requires careful selection of the therapeutic agents, as well as development of efficient delivery vectors. BENSpm (N1, N11-bisethylnorspermine), a polyamine analogue targeting the intracellular polyamine pathway, draws our special attention because of the following reasons: (1) polyamine pathway is frequently dysregulated in cancer; (2) BENSpm exhibits multiple functions to interfere with the polyamine pathway, such as to up-regulate polyamine metabolism enzymes and down-regulate polyamine biosynthesis enzymes. Therefore BENSpm depletes all natural polyamines and leads to apoptosis and cell growth inhibition in a wide range …