Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles in cancer treatment and diagnosis

Nanotechnology offers the possibility to exploit and modulate materials’ properties at the nanoscale providing sustainable and effective cancer therapy and diagnosis. In particular, magnetic materials have been involved in... [ view full abstract ]

Nanotechnology offers the possibility to exploit and modulate materials’ properties at the nanoscale providing sustainable and effective cancer therapy and diagnosis. In particular, magnetic materials have been involved in different ways in the development of the modern trechnology. Among them, the FDA approved iron oxide nanoparticles represent, for a long time, a promising candidate for nanomedical applications. Here, we propose iron oxide nanospheres/nanocubes as single particles (NCs) or as assemblies (MNBs) for developing tumor selective and multi-responsive nanosystems for multimodal therapy. The high surface area of the nanoparticles has been exploited for macromolecules delivery and small molecule-mediated tumor targeting/sorting towards cancer cells. For the first purpose, multifunctional stimuli-responsive nanostructures, based on iron oxide nanospheres, were used as scaffolds for a protease-sensitive release of a bioactive cargo. Within the second project, nanostructures made of clusters of iron oxide nanocubes were functionalized with Folic Acid (FA-PEG). This molecule, enhances the stability in biological media and confers affinity for overexpressing-folate receptor cells. We have also exploited the high heating performance of these materials to carry out magnetic hyperthermia. Nanocubes, in particular, express better magnetic properties compared to their spherical counterpart. In addition, due to their viscous-independent behavior, high heating performance is kept also in highly viscous biological media. Therefore, such nanocubes might be interesting for the translation of hyperthermia into clinics. Considering the mentioned features, the here shown iron oxide nanoparticles, developed as single entity or clusters, provide a suitable scaffold for several nanomedicine applications.