Target tumor therapy in human gastric cancer cells through the combination of docetaxel-loaded cationic lipid microbubbles and ultrasound-triggered microbubble destruction

It is well accepted that ultrasound-induced microbubble (USMB) cavitation is a promising method for drug delivery. Ultrasound-targeted destruction of cytotoxic drug-loaded lipid microbubbles (LMs) is used to promote the treatment of cancer. This study aimed to investigate the antitumor effects from combination of docetaxel-loaded cationic lipid microbubbles (DLLM+) and ultrasound (US)-triggered microbubble destruction (UTMD) on gastric cancer (GC). Here, the functional dose of DOC was identified as 1×10− 9 mol/L. We found that DLLM combined with UTMD group showed greater growth inhibition of the cultured human gastric cancer cells (HGCCs) when compared with other five groups by arresting the G2 / M phase in cell cycle. However, DLLM+ combined with UTMD showed a higher inhibition rate of tumor growth than DLLM combined with UTMD and that of the RC / CMV-p16 combined with UTMD in vitro and in vivo experiments. DLLM+ combined with UTMD significantly suppressed proliferation and promoted the apoptosis of HGCCs with more cells arrested in the G2 / M phase. In addition, DLLM+ combined with UTMD suppressed the proliferation and induced the apoptosis by arresting cells in the G2 / M phase, which leading to a great inhibition of GC progression. Thus, our results indicated that the combination of DLLM+ and UTMD might represent a novel and promising approach to chemotherapy for GC.