Antitumor Effect and Pharmacological Mechanism of Paclitaxel-loaded Silk Fibroin Nanomaterials on H22 Subcutaneous Tumor Model of Mouse Hepatoma

Abstract

This work was developed to analyze the adoption of paclitaxel-loaded silk fibroin nanoparticles (SFNPs) in subcutaneous transplanted tumor model of mouse hepatoma to explore its anti-tumor effect. Twenty-five specific pathogen-free (SPF) mice were selected to construct a subcutaneous tumor model of liver cancer, and they were randomly rolled into control group, group A, group B, group C, and group D, with five mice in each group. The silk fibroin was mixed with an organic solvent to prepare a suspension, and the SFNPs were prepared through centrifugation, ultrasound, and other methods. The paclitaxel-loaded SFNPs were prepared by mixing paclitaxel and silk fibroin aqueous solution, centrifuging, washing, and dispersing. Then, the five groups of mice were intervened by different dosage regimens to analyze the changes of various indicators. As a result, the prepared nanoparticles had uniform particle size, uniform distribution, no adhesion, and the average particle size was less than 500 nm. The tumor volume of mice in groups C and D on the 7th, 9th, and 13th days of administration were dramatically smaller than those in the control group, group A, and group B (P [ 0.05). And the tumor volume (154.49 � 9.65 mm3) of mice in group D on the 13th day of administration was dramatically smaller than that in group C (167.79 � 9.72 mm3) (P [ 0.05). The tumor mass (0.89 � 0.14 g, 0.54 � 0.13 g, and 0.46 � 0.11 g) of mice in groups B, C, and D was dramatically smaller than that in the control group and group A (1.23 � 0.12 g, 1.24 � 0.11 g) (P [ 0.05), and that of group D was dramatically smaller than groups B and C (P [ 0.05). The apoptosis rates of tumor cells in groups C and D (46.38%, 48.23%) were greatly superior to those in the control group (16.7%), group A (21.33%), and group B (35.6%) (P [ 0.05), and that of group D was greatly superior to that in group C (P [ 0.05). In summary, paclitaxel-loaded SFNPs can effectively improve the targeting effect and bioavailability of drugs in the treatment of liver cancer, thereby improving the efficacy, and had a good application prospect.