Issue 46, 2019

Metronidazole-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles for molecular detection of hypoxic tissues

Abstract

Being crucial under several pathological conditions, tumors, and tissue engineering, the MRI tracing of hypoxia within cells and tissues would be improved by the use of nanosystems allowing for direct recognition of low oxygenation and further treatment-oriented development. In the present study, we functionalized dendron-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (dendronized IONPs) with a bioreductive compound, a metronidazole-based ligand, to specifically detect the hypoxic tissues. Spherical IONPs with an average size of 10 nm were obtained and then decorated with the new metronidazole-conjugated dendron. The resulting nanoparticles (metro-NPs) displayed negligible effects on cell viability, proliferation, and metabolism, in both monolayer and 3D cell culture models, and a good colloidal stability in bio-mimicking media, as shown by DLS. Overtime quantitative monitoring of the IONP cell content revealed an enhanced intracellular retention of metro-NPs under anoxic conditions, confirmed by the in vitro MRI of cell pellets where a stronger negative contrast generation was observed in hypoxic primary stem cells and tumor cells after labeling with metro-NPs. Overall, these results suggest desirable properties in terms of interactions with the biological environment and capability of selective accumulation into the hypoxic tissue, and indicate that metro-NPs have considerable potential for the development of new nano-platforms especially in the field of anoxia-related diseases and tissue engineered models.

Graphical abstract: Metronidazole-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles for molecular detection of hypoxic tissues

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Okt. 2019
Accepted
30 Okt. 2019
First published
30 Okt. 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale, 2019,11, 22559-22574

Metronidazole-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles for molecular detection of hypoxic tissues

M. Filippi, D. Nguyen, F. Garello, F. Perton, S. Bégin-Colin, D. Felder-Flesch, L. Power and A. Scherberich, Nanoscale, 2019, 11, 22559 DOI: 10.1039/C9NR08436C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements