Nanoparticle cell interactions induced apoptosis: a case study with nanoconjugated epidermal growth factor

EDUARDO A. CORONADO

Nanoscale

Royal Society of Chemsitry

Año: 2018 vol. 10 p. 6712 - 6712

2040-3364

n addition to the intrinsic toxicity associated with the chemical composition of nanoparticles (NP) and their ligands, biofunctionalized NP can perturb specific cellular processes through NP?cell interactions and induce programmed cell death (apoptosis). In the case of the epidermal growth factor (EGF), nanoconjugation has been shown to enhance the apoptotic efficacy of the ligand, but the critical aspects of the underlying mechanism and its dependence on the NP morphology remain unclear. In this manuscript, we characterize the apoptotic efficacy of nanoconjugated EGF as a function of NP size (with sphere diameters in the range 20?80 nm), aspect ratio (A.R., in the range of 4.5 to 8.6), and EGF surface loading in EGFR overexpressing MDA-MB-468 cells. We demonstrate a significant size and morphology dependence in this relatively narrow parameter space with spherical NP with a diameter of approx. 80 nm being much more efficient in inducing apoptosis than smaller spherical NP or rod-shap