Dual-Drug Backboned Polyprodrug with a Predefined Drug Combination for Synergistic Chemotherapy

Abstract

The codelivery of drugs at specific optimal ratios to cancer cells is vital for combination chemotherapy. However, most of the current strategies are unable to coordinate the loading and release of drug combinations to acquire precise and controllable synergistic ratios. In this work, we designed an innovative dual-drug backboned and reduction-sensitive polyprodrug PEG-P(MTO-ss-CUR) containing the anticancer drugs mitoxantrone (MTO) and curcumin (CUR) at an optimal synergistic ratio to reverse drug resistance. Due to synchronous drug activation and polymer backbone degradation, drug release at the predefined ratio with a synergistic anticancer effect was demonstrated by <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i> experiments. Therefore, the dual-drug delivery system developed in this work provides a novel and efficient strategy for combination chemotherapy.