Aptamer-targeted DNA nanostructures with doxorubicin to treat protein tyrosine kinase 7-positive tumours.

OBJECTIVES: Aptamer sgc8c is a short DNA sequence that can target protein tyrosine kinase 7 (PTK7), which was overexpressed on many tumour cells. This study aimed to fabricate a novelty DNA nanostructure drug delivery system target on PTK7-positive cells-CCRF-CEM (human T-cell ALL).

METHODS: Aptamer-modified tetrahedron DNA was synthesized through one-step thermal annealing process. The sgc8c-TDNs (s-TDNs) loading DOX complexes were applied to investigate the effect to PTK7-negative and -positive cells.

RESULTS: When s-TDN:DOX acted on PTK7-positive and -negative cells respectively, the complexes exhibited specific toxic effect on PTK7-positive cells but not on PTK7-negative Ramos cells in vitro research.

CONCLUSIONS: In this work, we successfully constructed a PTK7-targeting aptamer-guided DNA tetrahedral nanostructure (s-TDN) as a drug delivery system via a facile one-pot synthesis method. The results showed that s-TDN:DOX exhibited enhanced cytotoxicity against PTK7-positive CCRF-CEM cells, with a minor effect against PTK7-negative Ramos cells. Hence, this functionalized TDNs drug delivery system displayed its potential application in targeting PTK7-positive tumour T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.