A research team at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) studying sugar-coated nanoparticles
for use as a possible cancer therapy has uncovered a delicate balancing act
that makes the particles more effective than conventional thinking says they
should be. Just like individuals in a crowd respecting other people's
personal space, the particles work because they get close together, but not
too close.
An iron-centered nanoparticle (left) analyzed at NIST’s Center for Neutron Research has a coating of the sugar dextran, whose tendrils prevent groups of the particles from clumping. When tumor cells ingest them (right), the particles still congregate closely enough to share heat when stimulated by a magnetic field, killing the cells. White arrow indicates a red blood cell. Credit: (l.) J. Aarons; (r.) A. Guistini, R. Strawbridge and P. Hoopes, Dartmouth College
In cooperation with colleagues at The Johns Hopkins University, Dartmouth College,
the University of Manitoba and two biopharmaceutical companies, the NIST team
has demonstrated* that the particles—essentially sugar-coated bits of
iron oxide, about 100 nanometers wide—are potent cancer killers because
they interact with one another in ways that smaller nanoparticles do not. The
interactions, thought by many bioengineers to be undesirable, actually help
the larger particles heat up better when subjected to an alternating magnetic
field. Because this heat destroys cancer cells, the team's findings may
help engineers design better particles and treatment methods.
Nanoparticles hold the promise of battling cancer without the damaging side
effects of chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Minuscule balls of iron oxide
can be coated with sugar molecules making them particularly attractive to resource-hungry
cancer cells. Once the particles are injected, cancer cells would then ingest
them, and doctors would then be able to apply an alternating magnetic field
that causes the iron oxide centers to heat, killing the cancer but leaving surrounding
tissue unharmed.
Two biotech companies, Micromod Partikeltechnologie and Aduro BioTech, created
particles that showed great potential in treating cancers in mice, and they
asked NIST to help understand why it worked so well. “But they sent us
particles that were much larger than what the conventional wisdom says they
should be,” says NIST materials scientist Cindi Dennis. “Larger
particles are more strongly magnetic and tend to clump together, which makes
them large enough to attract the body's defense systems before they can
reach a tumor. The companies' nanoparticles, however, did not have this
problem.”
Neutron scattering probes at the NIST Center for Neutron Research revealed
that the particles' larger iron oxide cores attract one another, but that
the sugar coating has fibers extending out, making it resemble a dandelion—and
these fibers push against one another when two particles get too close together,
making them spring apart and maintain an antibody-defying distance rather than
clumping. Moreover, when the particles do get close, the iron oxide centers
all rotate together under the influence of a magnetic field, both generating
more heat and depositing this heat locally. All these factors helped the nanoparticles
destroy breast tumors in three out of four mice after one treatment with no
regrowth.
“The push-pull is part of a tug of war that fixes the distance between
nanoparticles,” Dennis says. “This suggests we can stabilize interacting
particles in ways that potentially pay off in the clinic.”
The research was funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command
and used facilities supported by the National Science Foundation.
* C.L. Dennis, A.J. Jackson, J.A. Borchers, P.J. Hoopes, R. Strawbridge, A.R.
Foreman, J. van Lierop, C. Gruttner and R. Ivkov. Nearly complete regression
of tumors via collective behavior of magnetic nanoparticles in hyperthermia.
Nanotechnology, 20 (2009) 395103. [doi:10.1088/0957-4484/20/39/395103]