Extracellular biosynthesis of gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) nanoparticles, their biodistribution and bioconjugation with the chemically modified anticancer drug taxol.

Shadab Ali Khan,Sanjay Gambhir,Absar Ahmad

doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.27

Shadab Ali Khan, Sanjay Gambhir + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.5.27

Copy DOI

Abstract

As a part of our programme to develop nanobioconjugates for the treatment of cancer, we first synthesized extracellular, protein-capped, highly stable and well-dispersed gadolinium oxide (Gd2O3) nanoparticles by using thermophilic fungus Humicola sp. The biodistribution of the nanoparticles in rats was checked by radiolabelling with Tc-99m. Finally, these nanoparticles were bioconjugated with the chemically modified anticancer drug taxol with the aim of characterizing the role of this bioconjugate in the treatment of cancer. The biosynthesized Gd2O3 nanoparticles were characterized by UV–vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS). The Gd2O3–taxol bioconjugate was confirmed by UV–vis spectroscopy and fluorescence microscopy and was purified by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Highlights

Gadolinium oxide nanoparticles are very important as nuclear, electronic, laser, optical, catalyst and phosphor materials [1,2,3,4]
Since Gd2O3 nanoparticles have proved their value in sitespecific drug delivery systems for cancer therapy, we extended the work of biosynthesis of Gd2O3 nanoparticles to bioconjugation with taxol
UV–vis spectroscopy To check the synthesis of gadolinium oxide nanoparticles, the mixture was monitored by periodic sampling of aliquots (2 mL) of the aqueous component

Summary

Introduction

Gadolinium oxide nanoparticles are very important as nuclear, electronic, laser, optical, catalyst and phosphor materials [1,2,3,4]. Gd2O3 has several potential applications in biomedicine, too It is used in magnetic resonance imaging, since it exhibits superparamagnetism and involves T1 relaxation, and can be useful as a multimodal contrast agent for in vivo imaging [5]. Gadolinium oxide nanoparticles are employed in sitespecific drug delivery systems for cancer therapy. The most common methods are the thermal decomposition of precursor salts, mechanochemical processing, milling and calcinations [9,10,11] These methods give agglomerated particles, occur at high temperatures, and employ harsh environments, rendering it difficult to find any usage of Gd2O3 nanoparticles in biomedical applications. Taxol is a hydrophobic drug and less specific to certain tumors due to its low solubility in water To counter these problems, we carried out the bioconjugation of chemically modified taxol with biocompatible Gd2O3 nanoparticles. Yeast extract, glucose and peptone were obtained from HiMedia and used as received

Methods

Results and Discussion

Conclusion