Departamento de Ingeniería Química y Textil, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad de Salamanca, 37008, Salamanca, Spain.
Departamento de Química Analítica, Química Física e Ingeniería Química, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Alcalá, 28801, Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Spain.
Colloids Surf B Biointerfaces. 2021 Mar;199:111506. doi: 10.1016/j.colsurfb.2020.111506. Epub 2020 Dec 4.
Polydopamine nanoparticles (PD NPs) have been synthesized in the present work through the oxidative polymerization of dopamine in aqueous media containing five different types of alcohol in a constant solvent volume ratio. We have shown that the type of alcohol, along with the ammonium hydroxide concentration used in the synthesis process, conditions particle size. Additionally, it has been found that the type of alcohol employed influences the well-known capacity of polydopamine nanoparticles to adsorb iron. As a consequence, since a ferroptosis-like mechanism may account for the cytotoxicity of these nanoparticles, the type of alcohol could also have a determining role in their antineoplastic activity. Here, the existence of a correlation between the ability of polydopamine nanoparticles to load Fe and their toxic effect on breast cancer cells has been proven. For instance, nanoparticles synthesized using 2-propanol adsorbed more Fe and had the greatest capacity to reduce breast tumor cell viability. Moreover, none of the nanoparticle synthesized with the different alcohols significantly decreased normal cell survival. Cancer cells present greater iron-dependence than healthy cells and this fact may explain why polydopamine nanoparticles toxicity, in which Fenton chemistry could be implicated, seems tumor-specific.
本工作通过在含有五种不同醇的水相中，在恒定的溶剂体积比下，使多巴胺发生氧化聚合，合成了聚多巴胺纳米粒子（PD NPs）。我们已经表明，醇的类型以及合成过程中使用的氨水溶液浓度会影响颗粒尺寸。此外，还发现所使用的醇的类型会影响聚多巴胺纳米粒子众所周知的吸附铁的能力。因此，由于铁死亡样机制可能解释了这些纳米粒子的细胞毒性，醇的类型也可能在其抗肿瘤活性中起决定性作用。在这里，已经证明了聚多巴胺纳米粒子负载 Fe 的能力与其对乳腺癌细胞的毒性作用之间存在相关性。例如，使用 2-丙醇合成的纳米粒子吸附了更多的 Fe，并且具有最大的降低乳腺癌肿瘤细胞活力的能力。此外，用不同醇合成的纳米粒子均不会显著降低正常细胞的存活率。癌细胞比健康细胞对铁的依赖性更大，这一事实可能解释了为什么聚多巴胺纳米粒子毒性（其中可能涉及 Fenton 化学）似乎具有肿瘤特异性。
