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 a combination of docetaxel-loaded cationic lipid microbubbles (DLLM+) and ultrasound (US)-triggered microbubble destruction (UTMD) on gastric cancer (GC). It was found that the functional dose of DOC in this study was 1 × 10−9 mol/L. We found that DLLM combined with the UTMD group showed greater growth inhibition of the cultured human gastric cancer cells (HGCCs) when compared with the other five groups by arresting the G2/M phase in the 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 apoptosis by arresting cells in the G2/M phase, which led 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.