Sperms used as vehicle for targeted drug delivery in gynecological cancers.

Xu, Medina-Sánchez, et al

Sperms are not just for baby-making anymore, but can be used as cargo agents for delivering drugs inside the body.

Getting the chemotherapeutic agent to only kill the tumor cells without affecting the normal cells is a dream come true in area of cancer therapeutics because of Targeted drug delivery systems(TDDS).

Targeted drug delivery systems using polymeric nanoparticles have opened up new avenues in cancer chemotherapy.  Liposomes have shown to be effective among an array of nano- and microcarriers but have the drawback of dilution by body fluids, decreased penetration and uptake by non-target tissues.

Bacteria could be an alternative but is not long before they are killed by our immune system.

Researchers at Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Germany and Chemnitz University of Technology are working on innovative way to use sperms as cargo delivery agents to carry drugs through female reproductive tract.

Mariana Medina-Sánchez and her colleagues have developed ‘sperms’ as new ‘weapons’ for treatment of several diseases of female reproductive tract including malignancies of genital tract, endometriosis and PID.  

Sperms offer unique advantages like being biocompatible, self-propelling, good tissue penetration, able to soak a large amount of drug, non-immunogenic, capacity of somatic fusion and precise drug delivery and does not cause unnecessary drug accumulation in healthy cells. 

   

Xu, Medina-Sánchez, et al.

The sperms are coated in the desired drug solution, then wrapped in iron suits to be guided by an external magnetic field in the female reproductive tract. The ‘iron-suit’ consists of laser-printed 3D microstructure (nanolithography) coated with a nanometric layer of iron with 4 arms which release the drug soaked sperm cells in situ.

The researchers carried out this pilot research by soaking bovine sperms in DOX-HCl (Doxorubicin) and testing this ‘tiny weapons’ to deliver the drugs into lab-grown cancer cells called HeLa. The sperms were successfully able to kill the standard cancer cells model, HeLa cells and HeLa spheroids.

The research is up and available to all the interested readers on the pre-publish website arXiv.org.

"Although there are still some challenges to overcome before this system can be applied in in vivo environments (e.g. imaging, biodegradation of the synthetic part, multiple sperms carrying and delivery, and improved control of sperm release), sperm-hybrid systems may be envisioned to be applied in in situ cancer diagnosis and treatment in the near future," the researchers conclude in their research.

The study was just a proof of concept and much work remains to be done before actual clinical application of these ‘Spermbots’, if successful it is a breakthrough that has potential to save many lives.

The full article can be accessed here.