Investigation of bombesin peptide as a targeting ligand for the gastrin releasing peptide (GRP) receptor

What is it about?

Targeted drug delivery provides a means to improve efficacy, while reducing side effect and the dose of drug that needs to be delivered. The bombesin peptide is a potential targeting moiety for various types of cancers. However, the development of targeted delivery systems requires highly characterised targeting moieties to assess their likely efficacy for drug delivery. In this paper we characterised the uptake of bombesin peptides in a library of different cell lines (Caco-2, HeLa, LNCaP, MDA-MB-231, and PC-3), and compared this to the level of its receptor GRPR in each cell line. This information provides important information for the in vitro assessment of GRPR targeted drugs.

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Why is it important?

Data is currently lacking in the literature about the expression level of GRP receptors in various cell lines, and how these levels affect the uptake of bombesin with respect to targeted drug delivery. This information is important where researchers want to identify appropriate cell lines to characterise their GRPR targeted delivery systems.