Smart Shockwave Responsive Titania-Based Nanoparticles for Cancer Treatment

Nanomedicine is an emerging treatment approach for many cancers, characterized by having high sensitivity and selectivity for tumor cells and minimal toxic effects induced by the conventional chemotherapeutics. In these context, smart nanoparticles (NPs) are getting increasingly relevant in the development of new therapies. NPs with specific chemical composition and/or structure and being stimuli-responsive to magnetic, light or ultrasound waves are new promising tools. In the present work, amorphous-titania propyl-amine functionalized (a-TiO₂-NH₂) NPs, coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA), are stimulated with high energy shock waves to induce cytotoxic effects in cancer cells. First, a new method to coat a-TiO₂-NH₂ NPs with BSA (a-TiO₂-NH₂/BSA) was proposed, allowing for a high dispersion and colloidal stability in a cell culture media. The a-TiO₂-NH₂/BSA NPs showed no cancer cell cytotoxicity. In a second step, the use of shock waves to stimulate a-TiO₂-NH₂/BSA NPs, was evaluated and optimized. A systematic study was performed in in vitro cell culture aiming to impair the cancer cell viability: NP concentrations, time steps and single versus multiple shock waves treatments were studied. The obtained results highlighted the relevance of NPs design and administration time point with respect to the shock wave treatment and allow to hypothesize mechanical damages to cells.