When the tumor tissues in each treatment group (Fig. 3C) were examined by H&E staining, markedly disseminated necrotic/ apoptotic areas were present throughout the sections of SP5-2-LDtreated xenografts (Fig. 5B ). In addition, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) was used to identify apoptotic cells and tomato lectin was applied to detect tumor blood vessels. The tumors had larger apoptotic areas and a The greater accumulation of anti-cancer drugs in tumor tissues and more bioavailable doxorubicin in cancer cell nuclei from the ligand-conjugated liposomes further demonstrated that the SP5-2 peptide recognized the target molecule on the surface of lung cancer cells and thus increased direct drug delivery to the tumor.