Efficient therapeutic delivery by a novel cell-permeant peptide derived from KDM4A protein for antitumor and antifibrosis

Abstract

Cell-penetrating peptide (CPP) based delivery have provided immense potential for the therapeutic applications, however, most of nonhuman originated CPPs carry the risk of possible cytotoxicity and immunogenicity, thus may restricting to be used. Here, we describe a novel human-derived CPP, denoted hPP10, and hPP10 has cell-penetrating properties evaluated by CellPPD web server, as well as In-Vitro and In-Vivo analysis. In vitro studies showed that hPP10-FITC was able to penetrate into various cells including primary cultured cells, likely through an endocytosis pathway. And functionalized macromolecules, such as green fluorescent protein (GFP), tumor-specific apoptosis inducer Apoptin as well as biological active enzyme GCLC (Glutamate-cysteine ligase, catalytic subunit) can be delivered by hPP10 in vitro and in vivo. Collectively, our results suggest that hPP10 provide a novel and versatile tool to deliver exogenous proteins or drugs for clinical applications as well as reprogrammed cell-based therapy.