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Controlled nanocarriers have been created for the precise targeted delivery of antitumor drugs
Skoltech blog on Naked Science portal
Researchers from Skoltech and the Israeli Hadassah Medical Center in Moscow have developed hybrid nanostructured particles that can be directed to the tumor using a magnetic field gradient, track their position by the level of fluorescence and initiate the release of a drug using ultrasound. The developed technology can contribute to improving the accuracy of targeted drug delivery during chemotherapy in cancer patients.
The results of the study are published in the journal Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces (Novoselova et al., Multifunctional nanostructured drug delivery carriers for cancer therapy: Multimodal imaging and ultrasound-induced drug release).
Today, such methods as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery are used for the treatment of oncological diseases. However, none of these methods has the necessary selectivity, which means that when exposed to a tumor, healthy tissues are also affected. In addition, due to their high toxicity to the whole body, the patient often finds it difficult to tolerate the prescribed treatment.
One of the possible solutions to the problem is the use of so–called focal therapy, which allows using nanoparticles to direct the drug precisely to the tumor. Several variants of biocompatible materials have been studied for the manufacture of nanoparticles. This technology can also be used for diagnostic purposes in addition to imaging techniques.
A group of Skoltech scientists led by Professor Dmitry Gorin from the Center for Photonics and Quantum Materials and Professor Timofey Zatsepin from the Center for Life Sciences has developed multifunctional nanostructured particles containing magnetic and photoacoustic nanoparticles, fluorescent dyes (Cy5 or Cy7), as well as the drug doxorubicin.
MRI studies were conducted by the head of the Department of Radiation and Ultrasound Diagnostics of the Hadassah Medical Center, Candidate of Medical Sciences Kirill Petrov. Studies using dynamic light scattering (DRS) and fluorescence tomography, as well as histological studies were carried out on equipment The Center for Collective Use "Biovisualization and Spectroscopy" of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.
Nanocapsules can be directed to specific areas of the tumor using a magnetic radiation gradient, providing high contrast in high-resolution imaging by MRI, optoacoustic and fluorescent imaging. The release of the drug is initiated by ultrasound.
Capsules are multicomponent, which ensures their versatility and, in particular, the possibility of using various types of imaging (fluorescent, optoacoustic, MRI), remote release of the drug (directional ultrasound) and navigation (magnetic field gradient).
"Capsules for drug delivery are manufactured using two methods. One of them – the method of crystallization-induced adsorption (FIL) was proposed by the co-authors of the article earlier and has been successfully used to load inorganic nanoparticles, proteins, low molecular weight drugs and so on into waterite particles submicron size. Waterite particles were used as templates in the manufacture of carriers and were removed after the formation of a polymer shell. To create such a biodegradable polymer shell, the polyionic assembly method was used," says Dmitry Gorin.
The researchers conducted in vitro experiments and in vivo animal studies, demonstrating not only the efficiency of the proposed method, but also an increase in the accuracy of targeted delivery of doxorubicin to the liver with the release of the drug using ultrasound. "This technology should undergo preclinical studies on animal models in order to assess the therapeutic efficacy and safety of such a drug delivery system. These studies are planned to be carried out at the next stage of our work," Timofey Zatsepin notes.
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