1,3-Bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea-loaded bovine serum albumin nanoparticles with dual magnetic resonance–fluorescence imaging for tracking of chemotherapeutic agents

Abstract

To date, knowing how to identify the location of chemotherapeutic agents in the human body after injection is still a challenge. Therefore, it is urgent to develop a drug delivery system with molecular imaging tracking ability to accurately understand the distribution, location, and concentration of a drug in living organisms. In this study, we developed bovine serum albumin (BSA)-based nanoparticles (NPs) with dual magnetic resonance (MR) and fluorescence imaging modalities (fluorescein isothiocyanate [FITC]-BSA-Gd/1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea [BCNU] NPs) to deliver BCNU for inhibition of brain tumor cells (MBR 261-2). These BSA-based NPs are water dispersible, stable, and biocompatible as confirmed by XTT cell viability assay. In vitro phantoms and in vivo MR and fluorescence imaging experiments show that the developed FITC-BSA-Gd/BCNU NPs enable dual MR and fluorescence imaging for monitoring cellular uptake and distribution in tumors. The T1 relaxivity (R1) of FITC-BSA-Gd/BCNU NPs was 3.25 mM −1 s −1 , which was similar to that of the commercial T1 contrast agent (R1 =3.36 mM −1 s −1 ). The results indicate that this multifunctional drug delivery system has potential bioimaging tracking of chemotherapeutic agents ability in vitro and in vivo for cancer therapy.

<p>Ultrasound-sensitizing nanoparticle complex for overcoming the blood-brain barrier: an effective drug delivery system</p>

“…Prakash et al demonstrated that 143 nm-sized HSA NPs showed 85.4% of cell viability in a MCF-7 cell line for 48 hrs 29. Wei et al tested 195 nm-sized BSA NPs to 300 μg/mL concentration in for 36 hrs in a MBR 262–1 cell line, and the BSA NP was more than 90% in cell viability 30. In line with other groups’ results, albumin NPs were strongly biocompatible materials, regardless of the origin of albumin, human, or bovine.…”

Bio-Inspired Protein-Based Nanoformulations for Cancer Theranostics

“…Besides bound to NIR dyes, BSA can be further engineered with other functional agents via complexation, such as gadolinium (Wei et al, 2016 ; Yang et al, 2016 ; Chen et al, 2017a ; Zhou et al, 2017 ), manganese (Liu et al, 2017 ; Pan et al, 2017 ) and graphene's derivatives (Sheng et al, 2013 ). For example, hollow BSA was employed to fabricate a size-tunable Gd 2 O 3 @BSA conjugating Ce6 theranostics agent for MR imaging-guided PDT and PTT (Figure 3 ) (Zhou et al, 2017 ).…”

“…The MoS 2 -Gd-BSA theranostics agent exhibits a strong NIR absorbance and high r 1 relaxivity, which are helpful for PA and T 1 -weighted MR dual-modal imaging-guided PTT of cancer. Besides, a chemotherapeutic drug carmustine-encapsulated FITC-BSA NPs were prepared by desolvation/denaturation method and conjugated with a MR gadolinium(III) salt to form nanomedicine with dual imaging modalities (Wei et al, 2016 ).…”