Gold Nanoparticles for Targeting Varlitinib to Human Pancreatic Cancer Cells
Sílvia Castro Coelho1, Daniel Pires Reis2, Maria Carmo Pereira3
1LEPABE-Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal. silvia.coelho@fe.up.pt.
Abstract:
Colloidal gold nanoparticles are targeting probes to improve varlitinib delivery into cancer cells. The nanoconjugates were designed by the bioconjugation of pegylated gold nanoparticles with varlitinib via carbodiimide-mediated cross-linking and characterized by infrared and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The drug release response shows an initial delay and a complete drug release after 72 h is detected. In vitro experiments with MIA PaCa-2 cells corroborate that PEGAuNPsVarl conjugates increase the varlitinib toxic effect at very low concentrations (IC50 = 80 nM) if compared with varlitinib alone (IC50 = 259 nM). Our results acknowledge a decrease of drug side effects in normal cells and an enhancement of drug efficacy against to the pancreatic cancer cells reported.
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