Thursday, October 8, 2009

Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles Help Target Brain Cancer

Filed under: Nanomedicine

Nanowerk is spotlighting research by Argonne National Laboratory scientists to develop bioconjugated nanoparticles that seek out brain tumor cells while avoiding attack on healthy tissue. Although various nanoparticles tend to passively gather in larger numbers in tumor cells due to the so-called "permeability and retention effect", the differentiation is not specific enough when dealing with particularly fragile brain tissue.

Nanowerk explains:

The delivery platform developed by Rozhkova [Elena Rozhkova from Argonne's NanoBio Interfaces group] and her colleagues uses 5 nm titanium dioxide nanoparticles that are covalently conjugated with an antibody that specifically targets certain tumors, including GBM. A naturally occurring metabolite of dopamin, DOPAC, is used as a linker molecule to tether the antibody to the nanoparticles. The whole thing works like this: the titanium dioxide/antibody nanobiocomposite binds exclusively to GBM cells. The hybrid semiconductor particles absorb energy from light, which is then transferred to molecular oxygen, producing cytotoxic reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS damages the cell membrane and induces programmed death of the cancer cell.

More from Nanowerk: Nanotechnology therapy for brain cancer...

Abstract in Nano Letters: A High-Performance Nanobio Photocatalyst for Targeted Brain Cancer Therapy...

Flashback: Quantum Dots May Prove Effective Against Cancer Cells...

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