Among all cancer treatment options, chemotherapy continues to play a major role in killing free cancer cells and removing undetectable tumor micro-focuses. Although chemotherapies are successful in some cases, systemic toxicity may develop at the same time due to lack of selectivity of the drugs for cancer tissues and cells, which often leads to the failure of chemotherapies. Obviously, the therapeutic effects will be revolutionarily improved if human can deliver the anticancer drugs with high selectivity to cancer cells or cancer tissues. This selective delivery of the drugs has been called target treatment. To realize target treatment, the first step of the strategies is to build up effective target drug delivery systems. Generally speaking, such a system is often made up of the carriers and drugs, of which the carriers play the roles of target delivery. An ideal carrier for target drug delivery systems should have three pre-requisites for their functions: (1) they themselves have target effects; (2) they have sufficiently strong adsorptive effects for anticancer drugs to ensure they can transport the drugs to the effect-relevant sites; and (3) they can release the drugs from them in the effect-relevant sites, and only in this way can the treatment effects develop. The transporting capabilities of carbon nanotubes combined with appropriate surface modifications and their unique physicochemical properties show great promise to meet the three pre-requisites. Here, we review the progress in the study on the application of carbon nanotubes as target carriers in drug delivery systems for cancer therapies.
This work is aimed to evaluate a method to detect the residual magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) in animal tissues. Ferric ions released from MNPs through acidification with hydrochloric acid can be measured by complexation with potassium thiocyanate. MNPs in saline could be well detected by this chemical colorimetric method, whereas the detected sensitivity decreased significantly when MNPs were mixed with mouse tissue homogenates. In order to check the MNPs in animal tissues accurately, three improvements have been made. Firstly, proteinase K was used to digest the proteins that might bind with iron, and secondly, ferrosoferric oxide (Fe3O4) was collected by a magnetic field which could capture MNPs and leave the bio-iron in the supernatant. Finally, the collected MNPs were carbonized in the muffle furnace at 420°C before acidification to ruin the groups that might bind with ferric ions such as porphyrin. Using this method, MNPs in animal tissues could be well measured while avoiding the disturbance of endogenous iron and iron-binding groups.
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