Abstract
BackgroundThe ability to direct and manipulate neuronal cells has important potential in therapeutics and neural network studies. An emerging approach for remotely guiding cells is by incorporating magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) into cells and transferring the cells into magnetic sensitive units. Recent developments offer exciting possibilities of magnetic manipulations of MNPs-loaded cells by external magnetic fields. In the present study, we evaluated and characterized uptake properties for optimal loading of cells by MNPs. We examined the interactions between MNPs of different cores and coatings, with primary neurons and neuron-like cells.ResultsWe found that uncoated-maghemite iron oxide nanoparticles maximally interact and penetrate into cells with no cytotoxic effect. We observed that the cellular uptake of the MNPs depends on the time of incubation and the concentration of nanoparticles in the medium. The morphology patterns of the neuronal cells were not affected by MNPs uptake and neurons remained electrically active. We theoretically modeled magnetic fluxes and demonstrated experimentally the response of MNP-loaded cells to the magnetic fields affecting cell motility. Furthermore, we successfully directed neurite growth orientation along regeneration.ConclusionsApplying mechanical forces via magnetic mediators is a useful approach for biomedical applications. We have examined several types of MNPs and studied the uptake behavior optimized for magnetic neuronal manipulations.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12951-016-0190-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The ability to direct and manipulate neuronal cells has important potential in therapeutics and neural network studies
Applying mechanical forces via magnetic mediators has been presented as a useful approach in several biomedical applications
In this work we examined the interactions of different iron oxide nanoparticles with cells
Summary
The ability to direct and manipulate neuronal cells has important potential in therapeutics and neural network studies. The ability to manipulate and direct cells toward specific sites is of great importance in the field of biomedicine, with many potential implications in neurorepair therapies and in the development of bio-chip devices. A recent innovative and promising approach to achieve site specific targeting in vitro and in vivo is to form complexes of cells interacting with magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) [9]. Due to their magnetic properties, magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) experience force in inhomogeneous magnetic fields and can be manipulated through such fields [3, 10]. The conjugation of MNPs to various proteins, i.e. growth factors, has been shown to increase the proteins’ half-life and enhance the effects on cells [13,14,15]
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