Korean researchers develop mRNA delivery lipid nanoparticles that directly attack cancer cells

A novel therapeutic approach targeting cancer cells via mRNA has been proposed.

Professor Koo Hee-beom (corresponding author, Department of Biomedical Sciences, the Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine), Dr. Park Ji-sun (co-first author) from the Synthetic Biology Project Team, Basic Medical Research Promotion Group, Catholic Medical Center, and Researcher Lee Ye-eun (co-first author) announced on Tuesday that they developed “lipid nanoparticles (LNP)” to deliver genes that induce cancer cell self-destruction in the form of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid).

They confirmed the anti-cancer effect after treating lung metastatic cancer.

mRNA and lipid nanoparticles have recently gained significant attention as components of Covid-19 vaccines. While they are also being applied in cancer treatment research, a major challenge has been the difficulty of delivering anti-cancer genes to cancer cells via intravenous injection, as they are primarily administered as cancer vaccines through intramuscular injection.

Professor Koo's research team utilized optimized lipid nanoparticles to solve this problem. Lipids, simply put, are “oil components.” These components are used to create very small particles, into which genetic material, mRNA, is inserted.

mRNA instructs cells to produce proteins. The research team incorporated “blueprints for producing two types of proteins that induce cancer cells to self-destruct” into this mRNA. These lipid nanoparticles were engineered to target only specific organs (the lungs), ensuring they affect only cancer cells without impacting healthy organs.

The strategy employed by Professor Koo's team goes beyond delivering a single signal; it induces cancer cell apoptosis (the process of programmed cell death) through two distinct pathways. The first is TRAIL (a protein that sends signals from outside to induce the death of cancer cells). The second is BAK (a protein that issues a suicide command inside the cell to kill it). Crucially, they leveraged the fact that these proteins are more effective in cancer cells than in normal cells.

The research team designed mRNA to simultaneously express TRAIL and BAK. This dual strategy sends a signal to cancer cells to die from the “outside” while simultaneously activating their internal suicide program. Consequently, the anti-cancer effect was significantly greater than when using a single gene alone.

Experimental results confirmed that mRNA delivery using lipid nanoparticles effectively suppressed cancer cell growth and prevented metastasis in a lung metastasis model. This case is considered a demonstration of new possibilities for mRNA-based anticancer therapy.

The research team assessed that this study shows potential for application in various cancer treatment fields in the future, extending beyond the laboratory level. They emphasized its particular significance in that mRNA technology, recently made widely known through Covid-19 vaccines, can now be extended to cancer treatment.

“This study demonstrates the potential to directly deliver mRNA to cancer cells for attack via intravenous injection using lipid nanoparticles,” Professor Koo said. “We will continue our research to develop therapeutic strategies combining lipid nanoparticles and mRNA technology that can be applied not only to lung cancer but also to other types of cancer.”