Nitric oxide photocaging platinum nanoparticles with anticancer potential

Abstract

In this contribution we report the design, fabrication and properties of hydrosoluble platinum nanoparticles decorated with a nitric oxide (NO) caging compound. Direct monitoring of NO through an ultrasensitive NO electrode demonstrate that the nanoparticles are stable in the dark but supply NO at nanomolar levels exclusively upon light excitation. The biocompatibility of these nanohybrid systems and their potential in photoactivated anticancer therapy have been explored by in vitro experiments using tumor cell lines. Overall these nanoparticles meet a combination of ideal prerequisites in the context of biomedical applications. Indeed, they associate small sizes, good water solubility and thermal stability under physiological conditions with excellent biocompatibility and appreciable tumor cell mortality upon irradiation with visible light. All these features make our photoactivable nanoparticles very appealing point sources of NO from the viewpoint of practical application in the emerging field of nanomedicine.

Metal complex strategies for photo-uncaging the small molecule bioregulators nitric oxide and carbon monoxide

“…Sortino and coworkers were the first to explore NO release from systems constructed from metallic nanoparticles when they used platinum NPs as the core to assemble a polyfunctional system containing both a porphyrin based fluorophore and a derivative of nitroaniline as a photoNORM [95,96]. Irradiation of this ensemble in pH 7.4 aqueous solution at 400 nm gave both NO release and red fluorescence.…”

Combination of nitric oxide and drug delivery systems: tools for overcoming drug resistance in chemotherapy

“…Direct killing of cancer cells can be achieved with high concentration of NO (µM-mM) [35–38], however, its practical applications are limited due to the poor bioavailability of NO-donors with low NO capacity and instability during storage and systemic circulation. On the other hand, broad ranges of NO concentrations have shown chemosensitizing effect to reverse MDR, which has recently inspired researchers to develop combined NO and drug delivery systems.…”

PAMAM dendrimers functionalized with ruthenium nitrosyl as nitric oxide carriers

“…Silica [21,22], xerogels [23][24][25], liposomes [26,27], nanoparticles [28] and dendrimers [18,29,30], are common examples of matrices that have been used as NO-releasing vehicles [17,31]. Dendrimers are attractive molecules for NO transport, once they can provide a scaffold for storing large amounts of NO on a single framework [18].…”