Bipolar Nanoparticles Selectively Kill Breast Cancer Cells

Drug developers have created bipolar nanoparticles that successfully targeted and killed Her-2-positive breast cancer cells while not harming normal tissues.

Investigators from Brown University (Providence, RI, USA) fashioned the bipolar nanoparticles by pasting gold (Au) nanoparticles together with iron-oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles. They then coupled monoclonal antibodies to the iron oxide ends of the particles and the anticancer drug cisplatin to the gold ends. The antibody was specific for a protein on the surface of Her-2-positive tumor cells. A pH-sensitive covalent bond was used to conjugate the gold end of the nanoparticles to cisplatin to ensure that the drug was not released into the body but remained attached to the nanoparticles until it had been delivered to the malignant cell.

Results published in the March 10, 2009, online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) revealed that the nanoparticles successfully sought out the target cancer cells and released the anticancer drug into them, killing the malignant cells in up to 80% percent of cases. "Like a missile, you do not want the anticancer drugs to explode everywhere,” said senior author Dr. Shouheng Sun, professor of chemistry at Brown University. "You want it to target the tumor cells and not the healthy ones.”

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