Abstract
This study evaluates tumour cell-killing efficacy of metallic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)-mediated photo-thermal therapy (PTT) in comparison to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) as a standard chemotherapeutic drug. It also focuses on the possible genetic abnormalities of both drugs in normal blood lymphocytes. Both 5-FU and light-activated spherical AuNPs of 15± nm diameter were used to target MCF-7 breast cancer cell line. Alkaline comet assay, standard karyotyping and multiplex fluorescent in situ hybridization were applied in order to investigate the respective possible genotoxic and mutagenic side effects that might result from the application of each therapeutic modality. Results showed that the LC25 of AuNPs-mediated PTT was achieved at a concentration of 100 µM for 12-h incubation and exposure to light energy of 50 J/cm2, while the same cytotoxic effect was obtained by incubating the MCF-7 cells with the same concentration of the chemotherapeutic drug 5-FU for 24 h. On the other hand, AuNPs showed insignificant genotoxic effect of DNA damage represented by 4.6 % in comparison to 18.58 % exerted by 5-FU. The chromosomal studies resulted in normal karyotypes for cells treated with AuNPs-mediated PTT, while those treated with 5-FU showed several types of numerical as well as structural chromosomal aberrations. In conclusion, compared to 5-FU, light-activated AuNPs-mediated PTT provides considerable efficacy in breast cancer cells killing with no genetic side effects under the proposed experimental conditions.
Published Version
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