Nitride in your cage: like a cancer killer in an inert matrix hid
A bunch of the words "nanoparticles" and "cancer" has become a bit familiar. Many laboratories around the world are trying to push drugs into cancer cells at the expense of these very nanoparticles. Although, it would seem, if the drug does not pass into the cell itself, how will the passage of the drug molecule to a piece of another substance, which is certainly greater than it, help such passage?
Targeted drug delivery is very convenient. First, less medicine is wasted to create the right concentration in the right place. Secondly, and more importantly, the drug (often quite toxic) does not affect the healthy part of the body. The devil, as usual, in the details.
First of all, you need to know exactly what a person is sick. Therefore, the importance of accurate diagnosis increases incredibly. However, now is not about that. Secondly, it is necessary that the drug with the carrier only gets (or predominantly) in the desired cells, and almost does not fall into the rest. And this implies not only enumeration of carriers, but also checking them on all (!) Cell types in the body. Moreover, the success of in vitro experiments does not guarantee at all that the result will be repeated in the body of an animal or, especially, a person, because the conditions in which the substances under test are slightly different. And this “little” is quite enough to spoil the experiment.
However, scientists have already been able to come up with several ways to deliver nanoparticles to certain cells. Mostly cancerous. Of the most promising, you can list magnetic and inert nanoparticles, for example, from magnetite or gold. They pass through the cell membrane of tumor cells due to substances sutured to them that "like" cancer cells. Basically, it is folic acid. The need for tumor cells in it is a thousand times higher than that of normal ones. Then there are two ways - either powerful heating of metal nanoparticles with a magnetic field (in the case of magnetite) followed by the death of the cells filled with them, or weaker heating, which is accompanied by desorption of the previously prepared drug on the nanoparticle surface.
The second method began to develop, because of the thermal destruction problems. First, healthy cells died in which nanoparticles were accidentally carried. And secondly, the process was not as fast as we would like, and it worked like a siren. Therefore, instead of death, part of the tumor cells began to actively proliferate and metastasize. By the way, gold nanocomplexes tried to use, because magnetite itself was quite toxic. But gold also had its own problems - too small a specific surface, for example, because of what a rather small amount of a drug could be stuck.
In search of inert nanoparticles with a developed surface, able to penetrate the cell membrane and satisfy even a bunch of conditions, many copies are broken. A group of scientists from NITU "MISiS" together with colleagues from the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, as well as the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia), got a rather original solution based on hexagonal boron nitride, which gives amazing surface indicators. It turned out that he not only takes folic acid well, but also is able to adequately absorb / desorb doxorubicin . Due to the difference in the acidity of the medium in the extracellular space and in the cell, doxorubicin is retained on the surface of the nanoparticle until it enters the cell, and flies away to do its dirty work after the cell barrier has passed.
“Thus, the drug is secreted almost exclusively inside cancer cells, which greatly reduces the overall concentration of the drug in the body - and, as a result, prevents intoxication,” says one of the authors of the study, senior research scientist at the Inorganic Nanomaterials Laboratory of the MISiS National Research University Andrei Matveyev.
The material turned out to be beneficial not only in cancer therapy, but also as a catalyst for photoactive processes, as described in more detail in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology . Boron nitride so over-excited the silver atoms that made catalytic hydrogen production from methanol efficient. Incidentally, it also describes how a whole colony of Escherichia coli test bacteria was killed about a complex nanoparticle. And that through this material it is quite possible to disinfect water.
PS What other properties does a new nanocomplex hide? It remains to be seen, but this is enough for active use. Nevertheless, the installation for obtaining nanoparticles is working (see photo 1), so the main discoveries are ahead.
Targeted drug delivery is very convenient. First, less medicine is wasted to create the right concentration in the right place. Secondly, and more importantly, the drug (often quite toxic) does not affect the healthy part of the body. The devil, as usual, in the details.
First of all, you need to know exactly what a person is sick. Therefore, the importance of accurate diagnosis increases incredibly. However, now is not about that. Secondly, it is necessary that the drug with the carrier only gets (or predominantly) in the desired cells, and almost does not fall into the rest. And this implies not only enumeration of carriers, but also checking them on all (!) Cell types in the body. Moreover, the success of in vitro experiments does not guarantee at all that the result will be repeated in the body of an animal or, especially, a person, because the conditions in which the substances under test are slightly different. And this “little” is quite enough to spoil the experiment.
However, scientists have already been able to come up with several ways to deliver nanoparticles to certain cells. Mostly cancerous. Of the most promising, you can list magnetic and inert nanoparticles, for example, from magnetite or gold. They pass through the cell membrane of tumor cells due to substances sutured to them that "like" cancer cells. Basically, it is folic acid. The need for tumor cells in it is a thousand times higher than that of normal ones. Then there are two ways - either powerful heating of metal nanoparticles with a magnetic field (in the case of magnetite) followed by the death of the cells filled with them, or weaker heating, which is accompanied by desorption of the previously prepared drug on the nanoparticle surface.
The second method began to develop, because of the thermal destruction problems. First, healthy cells died in which nanoparticles were accidentally carried. And secondly, the process was not as fast as we would like, and it worked like a siren. Therefore, instead of death, part of the tumor cells began to actively proliferate and metastasize. By the way, gold nanocomplexes tried to use, because magnetite itself was quite toxic. But gold also had its own problems - too small a specific surface, for example, because of what a rather small amount of a drug could be stuck.
In search of inert nanoparticles with a developed surface, able to penetrate the cell membrane and satisfy even a bunch of conditions, many copies are broken. A group of scientists from NITU "MISiS" together with colleagues from the State Research Center for Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, as well as the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia), got a rather original solution based on hexagonal boron nitride, which gives amazing surface indicators. It turned out that he not only takes folic acid well, but also is able to adequately absorb / desorb doxorubicin . Due to the difference in the acidity of the medium in the extracellular space and in the cell, doxorubicin is retained on the surface of the nanoparticle until it enters the cell, and flies away to do its dirty work after the cell barrier has passed.
“Thus, the drug is secreted almost exclusively inside cancer cells, which greatly reduces the overall concentration of the drug in the body - and, as a result, prevents intoxication,” says one of the authors of the study, senior research scientist at the Inorganic Nanomaterials Laboratory of the MISiS National Research University Andrei Matveyev.
The material turned out to be beneficial not only in cancer therapy, but also as a catalyst for photoactive processes, as described in more detail in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology . Boron nitride so over-excited the silver atoms that made catalytic hydrogen production from methanol efficient. Incidentally, it also describes how a whole colony of Escherichia coli test bacteria was killed about a complex nanoparticle. And that through this material it is quite possible to disinfect water.
PS What other properties does a new nanocomplex hide? It remains to be seen, but this is enough for active use. Nevertheless, the installation for obtaining nanoparticles is working (see photo 1), so the main discoveries are ahead.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/410571/