In vivo targeted therapy of gastric tumors via the mechanical rotation of a flower-like Fe3O4@Au nanoprobe under an alternating magnetic field

Abstract

Owing to their hypotoxicity, great spatial resolution and tomographic properties, Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs) are becoming one of the most promising materials for noninvasive biological imaging and shape-dependent therapeutic agents for malignant tumor therapy. Conventional spherical NPs are unable to effectively destroy cellular structure in therapy and thus result in tumors with a high risk of drug resistance. Herein we developed a novel flower-like targeting Fe3O4@Au-HPG-Glc nanoprobe (thiol-containing hyperbranched polyglycerol (HPG); 4-aminophenyl β-D-glucopyranoside (Glc)) that can enhance magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for cancer therapy. With the guidance of a targeting molecule, Fe3O4@Au-HPG-Glc nanoprobes can precisely target tumor cells. Under an alternating magnetic field (AMF), the flower-like Fe3O4@Au-HPG-Glc nanoprobes can rotate along the central axis of the core to substantially destroy tumor cells by damaging the nucleus or cell membrane. Our results showed that this shape-dependent therapeutic agent-based strategy had remarkable efficacy for MRI-guided tumor therapy. Furthermore, the inhibition of tumor growth in tumor-bearing mice was up to approximately 47.3% on the twelfth day of treatment compared with the level of inhibition in a blank group. Different from other reported methods for cancer therapy, our proposed AMF-dependent targeted cancer therapy is a novel strategy that can potentially reduce drug resistance in gastric tumors.