Gold Nanocarriers for Macrophage‐Targeted Therapy of Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Abstract

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) continues to be a global pandemic and there is an urgent need for innovative treatment. Immune cells represent a major target of virus infection, but are also therapeutic targets. Currently, no antiretroviral therapy targets macrophages, which function as portal of entry and as major long-term deposit of HIV. It has been shown before that human macrophages efficiently internalize gold nanoparticles, a fact which might be used to target them with drug-nanoparticle conjugates. Here, the authors use gold nanocarriers to facilitate delivery of stavudine, a widely used antiretroviral drug, to primary human macrophages. Using an ease-of-use coupling method, a striking potentiation of stavudine intake by macrophages using gold nanocarriers is shown. Further, the carriers induce a specific subtype of proinflammatory activation indicative for antiviral activity of macrophages, which suggests promising novel treatment options for HIV.

Applications of Gold Nanoparticles in Non-Optical Biosensors

“…Conventional ICP-MS is usually used in analyzing the concentrations and compositions of the elements. However, single-particle mode ICP-MS (sp-ICP-MS) is able to perform multiple information analysis on the structure, shape, particle size, and agglomeration of nanoparticles, which extends the application of ICP-MS technology in bioassay [161,162,163,164,165,166,167,168,169,170]. For the first time, Allabashi et al evaluated the possibility of direct determination of AuNPs in colloid solutions by ICP-MS, without previous digestion/dissolution.…”

Biological Effects of Nanoparticles on Macrophage Polarization in the Tumor Microenvironment

“…Gold nanoparticles have been investigated extensively in pre-clinical and clinical studies as tools for drug delivery, diagnostics and biomedical imaging due to their optical, acoustic and Raman properties 66-69. In one study, gold nanoparticles were developed as a delivery system for the antiretroviral drug stavudine (STA) 70. Figure 3 summarizes the findings of this study.…”

Immunomodulatory Nanomedicine

“…However, the iron supplementation of feraheme might lead to side effects such as inflammation, which shows that it is a complex issue to modulate immune cells. Similar to the M1‐shift induced by ferumoxtol, also Lipodex and nanocarrier‐coupled stavudine were discovered to lead to proinflammatory MΦ activation, possibly due to the accumulation of the drug inside the cells. While many strategies exist to cure lymphoid leukemia based on engaging the cells by depleting antibodies, there are few strategies to cure myeloid leukemia—a fact which might be related to the higher sensitivity of lymphocytes to certain drugs such as corticosteroids .…”