ABSTRACT
Bleomycin (BLM) is an anticancer antibiotic used in many cancer regimens. Its utility is limited by systemic toxicity and dose-dependent pneumonitis able to progress to lung fibrosis. The latter can affect up to nearly 50% of the total patient population, out of which 3% will die. We propose to improve BLM delivery by tethering it to an efficient delivery vector. Adenovirus (Ad) dodecahedron base (DB) is a particulate vector composed of 12 copies of a pentameric viral protein responsible for virus penetration. The vector efficiently penetrates the plasma membrane, is liberated in the cytoplasm and has a propensity to concentrate around the nucleus; up to 300,000 particles can be observed in one cell in vitro.
