Assessment of intratumor non-antibody directed iron oxide nanoparticle hyperthermia cancer therapy and antibody directed IONP uptake in murine and human cells

Magnetic nanoparticles for hyperthermia in cancer treatment: an emerging tool

Cancer remains as the major cause of death worldwide. The main reason why available therapies fail is that a vicious cycle in established which initiates multiple pathways and recurrence after metastasis. Hyperthermic treatment, which involves heating tumor tissues to a moderate temperature of 40-43 °C, has emerged as an effective strategy for treating tumors. This method is highly efficient at destroying tumor cells and does not induce the side effects of conventional cancer treatments. On the other hand, hyperthermic treatment method can be co-administered with conventional treatments. Nanotechnology had created huge opportunities in almost all areas of research, including the field of hyperthermic treatment. The utilization of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) offers functionalities not possible using conventional magnetic materials. In this review, we detail recent developments and applications of MNPs for hyperthermic treatment and discuss future possibilities.

Antimicrobial Metal Nanomaterials: From Passive to Stimuli-Activated Applications

The development of antimicrobial drug resistance among pathogenic bacteria and fungi is one of the most significant health issues of the 21st century. Recently, advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of nanomaterials, particularly metals that exhibit antimicrobial properties. These metal nanomaterials have emerged as promising alternatives to traditional antimicrobial therapies. In this review, a broad overview of metal nanomaterials, their synthesis, properties, and interactions with pathogenic micro-organisms is first provided. Secondly, the range of nanomaterials that demonstrate passive antimicrobial properties are outlined and in-depth analysis and comparison of stimuli-responsive antimicrobial nanomaterials are provided, which represent the next generation of microbiocidal nanomaterials. The stimulus applied to activate such nanomaterials includes light (including photocatalytic and photothermal) and magnetic fields, which can induce magnetic hyperthermia and kinetically driven magnetic activation. Broadly, this review aims to summarize the currently available research and provide future scope for the development of metal nanomaterial-based antimicrobial technologies, particularly those that can be activated through externally applied stimuli.

Magnetic Heating of Fe-Co Ferrites: Experiments and Modeling

Magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia uses magnetically-induced heat to kill cancer cells. In an alternating magnetic field, the induced heat depends strongly on particles' absorption properties. In order to achieve and maintain therapeutic temperatures inside a tumor and to minimize damage to normal tissues due to induced eddy currents, there is a need to develop new magnetic nanoparticles with improved heating characteristics. This paper investigates the magnetic heating properties of composite iron-cobalt ferrite nanoparticles Co _x Fe^II_1-x Fe^III₂O₄ with 0≤x≤1. These composite materials are synthesized using a precipitation method. First, the Fe-Co nanoparticle synthesis is described, then their structure, size, magnetic and heating properties are measured and analyzed. The resulting nanoparticles were treated at temperatures 100-600°C in order to study any structural transformations and changes of physical properties. Finally, an empirical model is used to calculate both the nanoparticles' coercivity and their specific absorption rates for different Co concentrations.

Synthesis methods to prepare single- and multi-core iron oxide nanoparticles for biomedical applications

We review and classify synthetic routes to either single-core or multi-core iron oxide nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

Iron oxide nanoparticle enhancement of radiation cytotoxicity

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) have been investigated as a promising means for inducing tumor cell-specific hyperthermia. Although the ability to generate and use nanoparticles that are biocompatible, tumor specific, and have the ability to produce adequate cytotoxic heat is very promising, significant preclinical and clinical development will be required for clinical efficacy. At this time it appears using IONP-induced hyperthermia as an adjunct to conventional cancer therapeutics, rather than as an independent treatment, will provide the initial IONP clinical treatment. Due to their high-Z characteristics, another option is to use intracellular IONPs to enhance radiation therapy without excitation with AMF (production of heat). To test this concept IONPs were added to cell culture media at a concentration of 0.2 mg Fe/mL and incubated with murine breast adenocarcinoma (MTG-B) cells for either 48 or 72 hours. Extracellular iron was then removed and all cells were irradiated at 4 Gy. Although samples incubated with IONPs for 48 hrs did not demonstrate enhanced post-irradiation cytotoxicity as compared to the non-IONP-containing cells, cells incubated with IONPs for 72 hours, which contained 40% more Fe than 48 hr incubated cells, showed a 25% decrease in clonogenic survival compared to their non-IONP-containing counterparts. These results suggest that a critical concentration of intracellular IONPs is necessary for enhancing radiation cytotoxicity.

Targeting of systemically-delivered magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia using a noninvasive, static, external magnetic field

One of the greatest challenges of nanoparticle cancer therapy is the delivery of adequate numbers of nanoparticles to the tumor site. Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) have many favorable qualities, including their nontoxic composition, the wide range of diameters in which they can be produced, the cell-specific cytotoxic heating that results from their absorption of energy from a nontoxic, external alternating magnetic field (AMF), and the wide variety of functional coatings that can be applied. Although IONPs can be delivered via an intra-tumoral injection to some tumors, the resulting tumor IONP distribution is generally inadequate; additionally, local tumor injections do not allow for the treatment of systemic or multifocal disease. Consequently, the ultimate success of nanoparticle based cancer therapy likely rests with successful systemic, tumor-targeted IONP delivery. In this study, we used a surface-based, bilateral, noninvasive static magnetic field gradient produced by neodymium-boron-iron magnets (80 T/m to 130 T/m in central plane between magnets), a rabbit ear model, and systemically-delivered starch-coated 100 nm magnetic (iron oxide) nanoparticles to demonstrate a spatially-defined increase in the local tissue accumulation of IONPs. In this non-tumor model, the IONPs remained within the local vascular space. It is anticipated that this technique can be used to enhance IONP delivery significantly to the tumor parenchyma/cells.

Magnetic Heating of Nanoparticles: The Importance of Particle Clustering to Achieve Therapeutic Temperatures

Hyperthermia therapy for cancer treatment seeks to destroy tumors through heating alone or combined with other therapies at elevated temperatures between 41.8 and 48 °C. Various forms of cell death including apoptosis and necrosis occur depending on temperature and heating time. Effective tumoricidal effects can also be produced by inducing damage to the tissue vasculature and stroma; however, surrounding normal tissue must be spared to a large extent. Magnetic nanoparticles have been under experimental investigation in recent years as a means to provide a favorable therapeutic ratio for local hyperthermia; however, practical numerical models that can be used to study the underlying mechanisms in realistic geometries have not previously appeared to our knowledge. Useful numerical modeling of these experiments is made extremely difficult by the many orders of magnitude in the geometries: from nanometers to centimeters. What has been missing is a practical numerical modeling approach that can be used to more deeply understand the experiments. We develop and present numerical models that reveal the extent and dominance of the local heat transfer boundary conditions, and provide a new approach that may simplify the numerical problem sufficiently to make ordinary computing machinery capable of generating useful predictions. The objectives of this paper are to place the discussion in a convenient interchangeable classical electromagnetic formulation, and to develop useful engineering approximations to the larger multiscale numerical modeling problem that can potentially be used in experiment evaluation; and eventually, may prove useful in treatment planning. We cast the basic heating mechanisms in the framework of classical electromagnetic field theory and provide calibrating analytical calculations and preliminary experimental results on BNF-Starch® nanoparticles in a mouse tumor model for perspective.

FEM numerical model study of heating in magnetic nanoparticles

Electromagnetic heating of nanoparticles is complicated by the extremely short thermal relaxation time constants and difficulty of coupling sufficient power into the particles to achieve desired temperatures. Magnetic field heating by the hysteresis loop mechanism at frequencies between about 100 and 300 kHz has proven to be an effective mechanism in magnetic nanoparticles. Experiments at 2.45 GHz show that Fe₃O₄ magnetite nanoparticle dispersions in the range of 10¹² to 10¹³ NP/mL also heat substantially at this frequency. An FEM numerical model study was undertaken to estimate the order of magnitude of volume power density, Q_gen (W m^-3) required to achieve significant heating in evenly dispersed and aggregated clusters of nanoparticles. The FEM models were computed using Comsol Multiphysics; consequently the models were confined to continuum formulations and did not include film nano-dimension heat transfer effects at the nanoparticle surface. As an example, the models indicate that for a single 36 nm diameter particle at an equivalent dispersion of 10¹³ NP/mL located within one control volume (1.0 × 10^-19 m³) of a capillary vessel a power density in the neighborhood of 10¹⁷ (W m^-3) is required to achieve a steady state particle temperature of 52 °C - the total power coupled to the particle is 2.44 μW. As a uniformly distributed particle cluster moves farther from the capillary the required power density decreases markedly. Finally, the tendency for particles in vivo to cluster together at separation distances much less than those of the uniform distribution further reduces the required power density.

MAGNETIC NANOPARTICLE HYPERTHERMIA IN CANCER TREATMENT

The activation of magnetic nanoparticles (mNPs) by an alternating magnetic field (AMF) is currently being explored as technique for targeted therapeutic heating of tumors. Various types of superparamagnetic and ferromagnetic particles, with different coatings and targeting agents, allow for tumor site and type specificity. Magnetic nanoparticle hyperthermia is also being studied as an adjuvant to conventional chemotherapy and radiation therapy. This review provides an introduction to some of the relevant biology and materials science involved in the technical development and current and future use of mNP hyperthermia as clinical cancer therapy.