Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. May 24, 2022; 13(5): 323-338
Published online May 24, 2022. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v13.i5.323
Tumor specifically internalizing peptide ‘HN-1’: Targeting the putative receptor retinoblastoma-regulated discoidin domain receptor 1 involved in metastasis
Frank-Un Hong, Miguel Castro, Klaus Linse
Frank-Un Hong, Miguel Castro, Klaus Linse, Research & Development, Bio-Synthesis, Inc., Lewisville, TX 75057, United States
Author contributions: Hong FU has worked on cancer genetics and molecular pharmacology; Castro M participated in therapeutics research; Linse K performed molecular modeling to predict the structure of peptides; Hong FU, Castro M, and Linse K meet the criteria for authorship established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and verify the validity of the results reported; Hong FU wrote the manuscript; all authors approved the final version of the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. Hong has received royalties from University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center patent covering materials related to HN-1 peptide. All other authors have nothing to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Frank-Un Hong, PhD, Research Scientist, Research & Development, Bio-Synthesis, Inc., 612 E Main St, Lewisville, TX 75057, United States. frank_hong@biosyn.com
Received: April 9, 2021
Peer-review started: April 9, 2021
First decision: June 28, 2021
Revised: July 6, 2021
Accepted: April 22, 2022
Article in press: April 22, 2022
Published online: May 24, 2022
Processing time: 410 Days and 11.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: The side effects associated with current drugs are exacerbated by the accumulation of administered drugs in non-tumor tissues. To guide, various tumor-homing vectors have been developed though their delivery efficacy is limited by poor penetration into solid tumors. To resolve, the ‘tumor specifically internalizing peptide’ HN-1 was isolated via biopanning a phage-display library. HN-1 peptide targets human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (breast, thyroid, potentially cervical, lung, uterine, colon cancer), translocates across the cell membrane and effectively penetrates solid tumors. Here, deciphering of the clues that pointed to discoidin domain receptor 1 as the putative receptor for HN-1 is described.