Engineered Peptide Coassembly Enables Precision Delivery of As(III)-Peptide Complexes and Counteracts Inflammation-Dependent Therapeutic Resistance in High-Risk Neuroblastoma. (PubMed, ACS Nano)
While arsenic trioxide (As(III)) demonstrates therapeutic potential through ferroptosis induction, its clinical application is severely constrained by dose-limiting systemic toxicity and consequent inflammation-mediated COX2/PGE2 pathway activation, which confers ferroptosis resistance...TCADS comprises two rationally designed self-assembling peptides incorporating As(III)-binding domains, tumor-selective targeting moieties (MMP9-responsive and Tenascin C-targeting motifs), and the COX2 antagonist naproxen (NPX)...This precision-targeted approach empowers TCADS to effectively disrupt the deleterious inflammation-ferroptosis resistance cycle, thereby successfully overcoming treatment resistance and suppressing tumor progression by 85.0% and 95.4% in subcutaneous and orthotopic tumor models, respectively. This integrated paradigm of precision-targeted delivery coupled with microenvironment modulation establishes a compelling therapeutic framework for chemoresistant HR-NB and potentially other MYCN-amplified malignancies.