Specific cancer stem cell-therapy by albumin nanoparticles functionalized with CD44-mediated targeting

Background Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are highly proliferative and tumorigenic, which contributes to chemotherapy resistance and tumor occurrence. CSCs specific therapy may achieve excellent therapeutic effects, especially to the drug-resistant tumors. Results In this study, we developed a kind of targeting nanoparticle system based on cationic albumin functionalized with hyaluronic acid (HA) to target the CD44 overexpressed CSCs. All-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) was encapsulated in the nanoparticles with ultrahigh encapsulation efficiency (EE%) of 93% and loading content of 8.37%. TEM analysis showed the nanoparticles were spherical, uniform-sized and surrounded by a coating layer consists of HA. Four weeks of continuously measurements of size, PDI and EE% revealed the high stability of nanoparticles. Thanks to HA conjugation on the surface, the resultant nanoparticles (HA-eNPs) demonstrated high affinity and specific binding to CD44-enriched B16F10 cells. In vivo imaging revealed that HA-eNPs can targeted accumulate in tumor-bearing lung of mouse. The cytotoxicity tests illustrated that ATRA-laden HA-eNPs possessed better killing ability to B16F10 cells than free drug or normal nanoparticles in the same dose, indicating its good targeting property. Moreover, HA-eNPs/ATRA treatment decreased side population of B16F10 cells significantly in vitro. Finally, tumor growth was significantly inhibited by HA-eNPs/ATRA in lung metastasis tumor mice. Conclusions These results demonstrate that the HA functionalized albumin nanoparticles is an efficient system for targeted delivery of antitumor drugs to eliminate the CSCs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12951-018-0424-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.