Abstract
Advances in surfactant-assisted chemical approaches have led the way for the exploitation of nanoscale inorganic particles in medical diagnosis and treatment. In this field, magnetically-driven multimodal nanotools that perform both detection and therapy, well-designed in size, shape and composition, are highly advantageous. Such a theranostic material—which entails the controlled assembly of smaller (maghemite) nanocrystals in a secondary motif that is highly dispersible in aqueous media—is discussed here. These surface functionalized, pomegranate-like ferrimagnetic nanoclusters (40–85 nm) are made of nanocrystal subunits that show a remarkable magnetic resonance imaging contrast efficiency, which is better than that of the superparamagnetic contrast agent Endorem©. Going beyond this attribute and with their demonstrated low cytotoxicity in hand, we examine the critical interaction of such nanoprobes with cells at different physiological environments. The time-dependent in vivo scintigraphic imaging of mice experimental models, combined with a biodistribution study, revealed the accumulation of nanoclusters in the spleen and liver. Moreover, the in vitro proliferation of spleen cells and cytokine production witnessed a size-selective regulation of immune system cells, inferring that smaller clusters induce mainly inflammatory activities, while larger ones induce anti-inflammatory actions. The preliminary findings corroborate that the modular chemistry of magnetic iron oxide nanoclusters stimulates unexplored pathways that could be driven to alter their function in favor of healthcare.
Highlights
Inorganic nanoparticulate systems, with optimized coating, have been utilized as effective multifunctional platforms in the complex environment encountered in biological and medical applications [1]
A high-temperature polyol-based synthesis approach has been adapted for the nucleation and growth of size-tailored (40 nm, 73 nm, and 85 nm) colloidal nanoclusters of maghemite nanocrystals after careful modification of the water content during the chemical synthesis
This is a single-step approach where the subtle impact of water is justified if we consider the higher affinity of the water molecules to coordinate stronger the surface metal cations, as compared to the affinity of the carboxylate groups (–COO–) of the polyacrylic acid (PAA)
Summary
With optimized coating, have been utilized as effective multifunctional platforms in the complex environment encountered in biological and medical applications [1]. Multifunctional nanoarchitectures that are capable of magnetically-driven [2,3] diagnosis, drug delivery, and monitoring of therapeutic response are expected to play a significant role in the dawning era of personalized medicine; as such, much research effort has been devoted toward that goal [4] For this purpose, the interactions between nanoparticles and cells are a key issue that has to be taken into account when the physicochemical features of such materials are optimized. The resulting system, when carefully synthesized with appropriate surface ligand groups, may gain additional targeted functionality to deliberately avoid, for example, the immune system recognition, and even inhibit or enhance the immune response [6] In this rapidly changing research field, synthetically controlled magnetic nanosystems of different morphologies and chemical phases have been used for magnetic resonance-based diagnostics, with promising magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) capability [7,8,9,10]. In the recent years though, rapid advances in wet chemical routes for the synthesis of size and shape-controlled surface-functionalized magnetic nanoplatforms [15] have led to better colloidal stability, improved crystallinity, and monodispersity, with consequent MR detection [16,17,18] beyond that of common superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPION; DTEM ≤ 10 nm diameter) contrast agents [19]
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