Latest Research

Screening paclitaxel-loaded capsules for tumor eradication using microfluidic channels

Abstract

“With the aim to locally enhance the efficacy of cancer nanotherapies, here we present metal iron based magnetoplasmonic drug-loaded nanocapsules (MAPSULES), merging powerful external magnetic concentration in the tumor and efficient photothermal actuation to locally boost the drug therapeutic action at ultralow drug concentrations. The MAPSULES are composed of paclitaxel-loaded polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nanoparticles partially coated by a nanodome shape iron/silica semishell. The iron semishell has been designed to present a ferromagnetic vortex for incorporating a large quantity of ferromagnetic material while maintaining high colloidal stability. The large iron semishell provides very strong magnetic manipulation via magnetophoretic forces, enabling over 10-fold higher trapping efficiency in microfluidic channels than typical superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. Moreover, the iron semishell exhibits highly damped plasmonic behavior, yielding intense broadband absorbance in the near-infrared biological windows and photothermal efficiency similar to the best plasmonic nanoheaters. The in vivo therapeutic assays in a mouse xenograft tumor model show a high amplification of the therapeutic effects by combining magnetic concentration and photothermal actuation in the tumor, leading to a complete eradication of the tumors at ultralow nanoparticle and drug concentration (equivalent to only 1 mg/kg PLGA nanoparticles containing 8 μg/kg of paclitaxel, i.e., 100–500-fold lower than the therapeutic window of the free and PLGA encapsulated drug and 13–3000-fold lower than current nanotherapies combining paclitaxel and light actuation). These results highlight the strength of this externally controlled and amplified therapeutic approach, which could be applied to locally boost a wide variety of drugs for different diseases.

MAPSULES structural properties. (A) Schematic of the drug-loaded ferromagnetic nanocapsules components and their functionalities. (B) SEM image of the self-assembled PLGA nanoparticles capped with Fe (20 nm) and SiO2 (10 nm). (C) TEM images of the ferromagnetic nanocapsules after dispersion in water for 3 h. (D) High-magnification TEM image of the semishell to show the thickness of the Fe and SiO2 layers, and (E) EDX mapping at the energies corresponding to Fe and Si atoms.” Reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License from Arnon Fluksman, Aritz Lafuente, Zhi Li, Jordi Sort, Silvia Lope-Piedrafita, Maria José Esplandiu, Josep Nogues, Alejandro G. Roca, Ofra Benny, and Borja Sepulveda ACS Nano Article ASAP.


Figures and the abstract are reproduced from
Arnon Fluksman, Aritz Lafuente, Zhi Li, Jordi Sort, Silvia Lope-Piedrafita, Maria José Esplandiu, Josep Nogues, Alejandro G. Roca, Ofra Benny, and Borja Sepulveda ACS Nano Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c05733 under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.


Read the original article:
Efficient Tumor Eradication at Ultralow Drug Concentration via Externally Controlled and Boosted Metallic Iron Magnetoplasmonic Nanocapsules

Pouriya Bayat

Published by
Pouriya Bayat

Recent Posts

A Reconfigurable Microfluidic Platform for Sample-Efficient Antibody Fc Biomarker Discovery

Precise diagnosis of infectious diseases is often hindered by a lack of accessible biomarkers that…

June 17, 2025

Ultrafast and Scalable CAR-T Manufacturing Using Microfluidics

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has reshaped the treatment landscape for hematologic cancers, but…

June 12, 2025

Compartmentalized perfusion enables precise control of microenvironments in cardiac microfluidics

In complex tissue environments, cells constantly interact with dynamic chemical signals, many of which are…

May 27, 2025

Microfluidic model shows α‑Synuclein spreads backward along axons

Lewy bodies -intracellular aggregates rich in α‑Synuclein (αSyn)- appear in a stereotyped pattern as Parkinson’s…

May 3, 2025

AI-Enabled Microfluidic Device for Rapid CD4+ T Cell Counting in Whole Blood

CD4+ T cell counts are essential for diagnosing and monitoring diseases like HIV, cancers, and…

April 7, 2025

High-Precision Cell Classification via Mechanical Traits Within Microfluidic Systems

Accurate sorting of cells without using external labels is often challenging, especially when dealing with…

March 14, 2025