Nuclear-targeted gold nanoparticles enhance cancer cell radiosensitization. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Nuclear-targeted gold nanoparticles enhance cancer cell radiosensitization.
Nanotechnology. 2020 Jun 25. Epub 2020 Jun 25. PMID: 32585647
Serdar Ozcelik
Radiation therapy aims to kill or inhibit proliferation of cancer cells while sparing normal cells. To enhance radiosensitization, we developed 40 nm-sized gold nanoparticles targeting the nucleus. We exploited a strategy that combined RGD and NLS peptides respectively targeting cancer cell and the nucleus to initiate cell-death activated by X-ray irradiation. We observed that the modified gold nanoparticles were either translocated in the nuclei or accumulated in the vicinity of the nuclei. We demonstrated that X-ray irradiation at 225 kVp energy reduced cell proliferation by 3.8-fold when the nuclear targeted gold nanoparticles were used. We determined that the radiation dose to have a 10% survival fraction was reduced from 11.0 Gy to 7.1 Gy when 10.0g/mL of the NLS/RGD/PEG-AuNP was incubated with A549 cancer cells. We conclude that the peptide-modified gold nanoparticles targeting the nucleus significantly enhance radiosensitization.