Nano LIFE

In this investigation, the photothermal heating of superparamagnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles was carried out by irradiating with either 785nm or 808nm near infrared (NIR) lasers. The effects of nanoparticle configuration, arrangement, and surface coating on the photothermal heating behavior were investigated for different Fe₃O₄ nanoparticle systems. Depending on the preparation method, Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles with mean hydrodynamic diameter ranging from 30nm to 250nm were synthesized. Photothermal transduction efficiency is a measure of light to thermal energy conversion; the highest efficiency obtained was 56% by 785nm and 42% by 808nm light irradiation for poly(acrylic) acid (PAA) coated Fe₃O₄ samples. With this conversion efficiency, the PAA-coated Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles raised the solution temperature $\sim$ $12^{\circ }$C above physiological temperature, which is sufficient for cancer therapeutics. Photothermal transduction efficiency was found to decrease as the particle hydrodynamic diameter increased. Nanoparticle absorption and scattering properties were found different due to surface modifications. UV-VIS-NIR absorption spectroscopy was carried out and results were analyzed using the Mie scattering theory. Experimental photothermal transduction efficiency was found to scale with the theoretical results for a particular wavelength. These results have significance in the design and development of the Fe₃O₄ nanoparticle systems for effective cancer therapy with NIR light.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) play an important role in cancer prognosis, treatment monitoring and metastasis diagnosis. However, due to the extremely low concentration of CTC in the peripheral blood, its isolation and enrichment are critical steps for early diagnosis. Herein, we used the transferrin modified lipid magnetic spheres for the isolation of ovarian cancer CTCs, and studied the relationship between the CTCs count and the clinical case parameters, prognosis of ovarian cancer. The result showed that no CTC was found in the peripheral blood of 30 patients with benign cysts, and 34 out of 46 patients with ovarian cancer were positive for CTC, with a positive rate of 73.9%. Analysis of the parameters of the clinical cases showed that the positive rate of CTC was related to the clinical stages, and that it was not significantly related to the age, histopathological types and pathological grades of patients. Of the 34 CTC-positive patients, 18 had progression-free survival, with a survival rate of 52.9%, and of the 11 CTC-negative patients, 9 had progression-free survival, with a survival rate of 81.8%. The results showed that the transferrin lipid magnetic spheres prepared in this study, could effectively isolate the CTCs in the peripheral blood of patients with ovarian cancer, that the level of CTC in ovarian cancer patients was related to its clinical stage, and that the progression-free survival of the patients with a high level of CTCs was relatively short. Therefore, this study shows that the transferrin lipid magnetic sphere can achieve effective isolation of ovarian cancer CTC, which can be used as an auxiliary diagnostic method in comprehensive diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

The aim of this paper is to identify key genes in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) through weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), and to further understand the molecular mechanism of LUAD. 107 gene expression profiles were downloaded from GSE10072 in the GEO database. We performed rigorous processing of the initial gene expression profile data. Subsequently, we used WGCNA to identify disease-driven modules and enforced functional enrichment analysis. The key genes were defined as the most connected genes in the driver module and were validated using the GSE75037 and TCGA database. GSE10072 removed 41 unpaired lung samples and 4 outliers. By analyzing the 62 samples using WGCNA, we obtained 26 modules and identified the brown and magenta modules as the driving modules for the LUAD. We found that the “Cell cycle”, “Oocyte meiosis” and “Progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation” pathways may be related to the occurrence of LUAD. GSE75037 removed 8 outlier and obtained 2909 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 26 genes (9 genes in the brown module, 17 genes in the magenta module) overlap with key genes in the driver module. The results of the survival analysis suggest that 19 genes were significantly correlated with the patient’s survival time, including KPNA2, FEN1, RRM2, TOP2A, CENPF, MCM4, BIRC5, MELK, MAD2L1, CCNB1, CCNA2, KIF11, CDKN3, NUSAP1, CEP55, AURKA, NEK2, KIF14 and CDCA8, which may be potential biomarkers or therapeutic targets for LUAD. In this study, we provide a theoretical basis for further understanding the biological mechanism of LUAD through bioinformatics analysis of LUAD.

Breast cancer is one of the most critical threats to women worldwide. The incidence and mortality of breast cancer are as high as 24.2% and 15%, respectively, ranking first in female malignant tumors. Although the main treatments for breast cancer include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, side effects and drug resistance are the main problems in conventional chemotherapy. In recent years, nanotechnologies have offered high potentials in cancer therapeutics due to unique physicochemical and biological properties of nanomaterials. The outcomes of nanomaterials research have shown effective solutions to critical issues that have not been well addressed by conventional medicine. In this review paper, we introduce the latest progress of nanotechnology in the treatment of breast cancer.

Different from the traditional cancer cell targeting through protein biomarkers, strong negative surface charges of cancer cells over normal cells derived from the dramatic excretion of lactate acid by cancer cells due to their glycolysis have been testified as an effective cancer cell binding strategy. In our previous work, polyethylenimine (PEI)-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs) with strong positive surface charge and good photothermal property have been applied to kill cancer cells in vitro. Considering the obvious cytotoxicity of the first generation of positively charged nanotherapeutics, second generation of magnetic nanotherapeutics with tunable surface charges was designed and prepared by shield of positively charged surface areas by negatively charged gold nanoparticles (AU NPs). In addition to reducing the cytotoxicity of original NPs, the photothermal property of magnetic NP core was simultaneously enhanced. Herein, the correlation of the capping degree of the positive surface charge by AU NPs and the photothermal inhibition of cancer cells was investigated.

The peroxidase-like functionality of iron oxide (IO) nanoparticles has attracted substantial attention in cancer treatment by reactive oxygen species (ROS) catalytic over-generation. However, the inefficient intracellular ROS generation still hurdles ready-to-use application of IO nanoparticles, attributing to the transient lifetime and limited diffusion distance of ROS. Indeed, excessive ROS generation in mitochondria is desirable to enhance cell death against cancer cells. In this study, we designed zinc-doped magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) conjugated with triphenylphosphonium (TPP) for mitochondrial targeting. Moreover, the nanoparticles with high absorbance in visible region can catalyze ROS overproduction under visible light irradiation. Our platform provides a novel application of MNPs in targeted cancer therapy, which serves as a light-controlled switch to accelerate ROS generation and induce incremental cellular death.

Breast cancer has the highest mortality rate among all cancers of female. A major challenge the successful cancer treatment is the need for a highly effective drug carrier to provide high effective targeted delivery and diagnose double function. Magnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (MNs) were modified by hexadecyl-quaternized (carboxymethyl) chitosans (HQCMC), 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC), distearoyl phosphoethanolamine-polyethylene glycol (DSPE-PEG) and anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) antibody. Docetaxel (DOX) was selected and encapsulated in PEG-EpCAM-Fe₃O₄ MNs (D-PEG-Ep-MNs). DOX encapsulation and loading efficiency was determined by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The synthesized vehicle D-PEG-Ep-MNs was characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM), Malvern particle size analyzer and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results showed that PEG-Ep-MNs can be selected as a kind of safe, efficient and specific tumor targeted drug delivery.