VEGF Overexpression Significantly Increases Nanoparticle-Mediated siRNA Delivery and Target-Gene Downregulation

The availability of nanoparticles (NPs) to deliver small interfering RNA (siRNA) has significantly expanded the specificity and range of 'druggable' targets for precision medicine in cancer. This is especially important for cancers such as triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) for which there are no targeted treatments. Our purpose here was to understand the role of tumor vasculature and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) overexpression in a TNBC xenograft in improving the delivery and function of siRNA NPs using in vivo as well as ex vivo imaging. We used triple negative MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer xenografts derived from cells engineered to overexpress VEGF to understand the role of VEGF and vascularization in NP delivery and function. We used polyethylene glycol (PEG) conjugated polyethylenimine (PEI) NPs to deliver siRNA that downregulates choline kinase alpha (Chk alpha), an enzyme that is associated with malignant transformation and tumor progression. Because Chk alpha converts choline to phosphocholine, effective delivery of Chk alpha siRNA NPs resulted in functional changes of a significant decrease in phosphocholine and total choline that was detected with H-1 magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). We observed a significant increase in NP delivery and a significant decrease in Chk alpha and phosphocholine in VEGF overexpressing xenografts. Our results demonstrated the importance of tumor vascularization in achieving effective siRNA delivery and downregulation of the target gene Chk alpha and its function.