STUDY OF THE BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF PEG-COATED MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLES IN BREAST CANCER CELLS

LEZCANO VIRGINIA; PRINCIPE GABRIEL; RIVERO SOFIA; MONTIEL SCHNEIDER MARIA G; LASSALLE VERONICA; GONZÁLEZ PARDO VERÓNICA

Mendoza

Congreso; LVIII Annual Meeting of the Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Research (SAIB); 2022

Breast cancer is a malignant tumor that may invade surrounding tissue and spreads to distant areas of the body. Quercetin is a phytoestrogen with anticancer activity; however, it has limited bioavailability and adverse effects on healthy tissues. In order to generate a non-toxic carrier to optimize the delivery of drugs for the treatment of breast cancer, in this work we firstly studied the biological activity of iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles coated with polyethylene glycol (MNPs) in MCF-7 cells. The MNPs were synthesized by the hydrothermal method and characterized with a hydrodynamic diameter of 204 nm and a zeta potential of -22.1 mV. Different concentrations of MNPs (1-150 µg/ml) were employed for the biological assays. The effect of MNPs on the cell morphology and the proliferation was analyzed using the Crystal Violet colorimetric technique, whereas cell viability was evaluated by the neutral red uptake assay. The results showed that both, proliferation and cell viability, significantly increased in the presence of the MNPs during 48 h. Moreover, incubation of the cells for longer periods of time (144 h) with the lower concentrations of MNPs did not provoke significant changes in the proliferation. In addition, to study the internalization and the accumulation of MNPs in MCF-7 cells, the iron content of the MNPs was evaluated by the Prussian blue assay. The representative images obtained under optical microscope and the quantification of the iron revealed that cellular uptake of the MNPs occurred after 48 h of incubation in a concentration dependent manner. The targeting of MNPs in the cell culture was assessed in the absence and presence of an external magnetic field of 0.3 tesla for 48 h. The results indicated that the direct exposure of the cell cultures incubated with 100 µg/ml of MNPs to a static magnetic field provoked a high intracellular accumulation of MNPs in the cells growing near the magnetic field without being incorporated by the surrounding cells. Altogether, these studies suggest that the nanoformulation employed would be suitable as non-toxic carrier of quercetin and other drugs, to optimize the treatment of breast cancer.