Objective: To obtain short peptides that bind specifically to ovarian carcinoma cell line HO8910 by whole-cell subtraction biopanning as an ideal vector for targeted drug delivery in ovarian cancer therapy.
Methods: With the HO8910 ovarian carcinoma cells as the target cells and human normal ovarian epithelial cells as the adherent cells, 4 rounds of panning from a PH.D-C7C phage-display peptide library were carried out. Individual phage clones were selected and identified by ELISA. Positive phage clones were characterized with DNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. The specific binding of the positive phage clones to HO8910 cells was tested with immunofluorescence cytochemistry.
Results: After 4 rounds of biopanning, phage clones showed preferential binding to the target cells. ELISA identified 12 positve phage clones from 20 randomly selected ones. Heptapentide (SWQIGGN) that bound specifically to ovarian cancer cells was obtained by DNA sequencing. The results of immunofluorescence cytochemistry indicated that phage1 could be specifically bound to HO8910 cells.
Conclusion: By means of whole-cell subtraction biopanning, we found a novel heptapentide which was able to bind specifically to ovarian cancer cells.