The assembly and antitumor activity of lycium barbarum polysaccharide-platinum-based conjugates.

In this work, the new polysaccharide-platinum conjugates of 5-aminosalicylic acid modified lycium barbarum polysaccharide linking platinum compounds were designed in order to construct an anticancer metal drug delivery system. The multiple analysis methods were used to describe the chemical structure and physical properties of the polysaccharide-metal conjugates. The results showed that 5-aminosalicylic acid successfully acted as linker which was covalently bound between polysaccharide and platinum compound. The morphology and rheological properties of polysaccharide have been changed by the formation of conjugates, which exhibited certain inhibition specificity to A549 (human lung cancer cell line). The agarose gel electrophoresis and fluorescence microscopy results demonstrated that such conjugates promoted the unwinding of DNA and could significantly damage the nucleus of A549 cells. Cell cycle analyzing the Pt complex of conjugates could cause intracellular DNA damage and induced G2 phase arrest. So, polysaccharide-platinum conjugates might find a range of applications, for example in metal anticancer drug delivery.