Introduction: NanoChemBio team has a robust know-how in the field of nanotechnology. They have prepared a broad portfolio of nanoparticles of different nature that has been broadly used in nanomedicine. They have developed a portfolio of protocols for multifunctionalization of these nanoparticles based on orthogonal protection strategies. These engineered nanoparticles have been successfully conjugated to small molecules, proteins and nucleic acids without altering the properties and activity of the bioactive cargoes.
Aim: To develop an effective, safe and non-toxic nanosystem based on the use of synthetic nanospheres that are multifunctionalized with (i) a drug, (ii) a diagnostic tracker and (iii) a ligand for targeted delivery. These new nanodevices will combine the following characteristics in a single therapeutic agent: pharmacological selectivity, tissue specificity and personalized treatment.
Results and Discussion: (i) Protocols have been successfully developed to generate these theranostic nanoparticles in a reproducible manner. (ii) Efficiency of cellular uptake and cell viability in a panel of breast cancer cell lines have been successfully achieved. (iii) In vivo tumour development and tracking of nanodevices were analysed by NIR fluorescence imaging. Interestingly, the IC50 of standard anticancer drug is higher than the IC50 of nanoparticle-bound drug. From the in vivo studies, there are three main achievements worth highlighting: (1) location of the nanoparticles within the tumour area; (2) tumour size was markedly reduced and (3), in contrast to free drug, nanoparticle-bound drug did not induce any toxicity in the mice.
Conclusions: A prototype of this nanodevice to treat breast cancer and to monitor treatment efficiency together with to determine localization of the tumour focus has been developed. Further studies will be carried out to scale-up the production of this nanodevice and to study in vivo nanotoxicity.
Acknowledgements: The authors thank the Research Results Transfer Office (OTRI) of the University of Granada for support on the technological development of this project. This research was supported by (i) University of Granada - Plan Propio Investigación y Transferencia 2016 -P28: PSETC (PSE/16/003), (ii) Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (BIO2016-80519-R) and (iii) Marie Curie Career Integration Grants within 7th European Community Framework Programme (FP7-PEOPLE-2011-CIG-Project Number 294142).
Targeted drug delivery and nanocarriers , Nanomedicine for cancer diagnosis & therapy , Nano-Imaging for diagnosis, therapy and delivery
