The novel strategy to overcome the drug-resistant lung cancer: Dual targeting delivery of PROTAC to inhibit cancer-associated fibroblasts and lung cancer cells.

Current pharmacotherapy on the fatal lung cancer is often limited by the development of drug resistance, which significantly contributes to treatment failure. The drug resistance in cancer is associated with tumor microenvironment (TME), particularly with cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). However, the present approaches show little progress in the eliminating lung cancer cells and reversing the TME synergistically. The emergence of nanomedicine offers promising strategies to overcome this challenge. In this study, we developed a proteolysis-targeting chimeras (PROTAC)-based nanodrug, designed to eliminate both lung cancer cells and CAFs, thereby amplifying the therapeutic effects. This nanodrug was constructed by loading dBET6 with US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved polymer Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), and further camouflaged with the hybrid membranes derived from platelet and lung cancer cells (PLMPD). PLMPD demonstrated excellent dual-targeting capabilities to both lung cancer cells and CAFs, leading to significant apoptosis in both cell types in vitro. We also found that PLMPD could inhibited the growth of Osimertinib-resistant cells. In vivo studies revealed that PLMPD enhanced tumor targeting, effectively inhibited tumor growth, and reversed the tumor-promoting TME in the lung cancer xenograft models. These findings underscore the potential of PLMPD as a promising PROTAC-based nanodrug for lung cancer therapy, offering a new avenue for overcoming drug resistance and improving treatment outcomes.