Curcumin, a polyphenol derived from turmeric, has multiple biological functions, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial and, above all, antitumor activity. Colorectal cancer is a common malignancy of the gastrointestinal tract with an extremely high mortality rate. However, the low bioavailability and poor targeting properties of curcumin generally limit its clinical application. In the present study, we designed a fusion protein GE11-HGFI as a nanodrug delivery system. The protein was connected by flexible linkers, inheriting the self-assembly properties of hydrophobin HGFI and the targeting ability of GE11. The data show that the encapsulation of curcumin by fusion protein GE11-HGFI can form uniform and stable nanoparticles with a size of only 80 nm. In addition, the nanocarrier had high encapsulation efficiency for curcumin and made it to release sustainably. Notably, the drug-loaded nanosystem selectively targeted colorectal cancer cells with high epidermal growth factor receptor expression, resulting in high aggregated concentrations of curcumin at tumor sites, thus showing a significant anticancer effect. These results suggest that the nanocarrier fusion protein has the potential to be a novel strategy for enhancing molecular bioactivity and drug targeting in cancer therapy.

中文翻译：

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姜黄素包封的基于融合蛋白的纳米载体展示了高效的表皮生长因子受体靶向治疗结直肠癌

姜黄素是一种源自姜黄的多酚，具有多种生物学功能，例如抗炎、抗氧化、抗菌，最重要的是具有抗肿瘤活性。结直肠癌是胃肠道常见的恶性肿瘤，死亡率极高。然而，姜黄素的低生物利用度和较差的靶向性普遍限制了其临床应用。在本研究中，我们设计了一种融合蛋白 GE11-HGFI 作为纳米药物递送系统。该蛋白通过柔性接头连接，继承了疏水蛋白HGFI的自组装特性和GE11的靶向能力。数据表明，融合蛋白GE11-HGFI对姜黄素的包封可以形成均匀稳定的纳米颗粒，尺寸仅为80 nm。此外，该纳米载体对姜黄素的包封率高，使其可持续释放。值得注意的是，载药纳米系统选择性地靶向具有高表皮生长因子受体表达的结直肠癌细胞，导致肿瘤部位的姜黄素聚集浓度高，从而显示出显着的抗癌作用。这些结果表明，纳米载体融合蛋白有可能成为增强癌症治疗中分子生物活性和药物靶向的新策略。