Tarantino Simona, Capomolla Caterina, Carlà Alessandra, Giotta Livia, Cascione Mariafrancesca, Ingrosso Chiara, Scarpa Edoardo, Rizzello Loris, Caricato Anna Paola, Rinaldi Rosaria, De Matteis Valeria
Department of Mathematics and Physics "E. De Giorgi", University of Salento, Via Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy.
Oncological Center, "Vito Fazzi" Hospital of Lecce, Piazza Filippo Muratore 1, 73100 Lecce, Italy.
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2023 Oct 7;13(19):2719. doi: 10.3390/nano13192719.
Radiotherapy (RT) involves delivering X-ray beams to the tumor site to trigger DNA damage. In this approach, it is fundamental to preserve healthy cells and to confine the X-ray beam only to the malignant cells. The integration of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in the X-ray methodology could be considered a powerful tool to improve the efficacy of RT. Indeed, AuNPs have proven to be excellent allies in contrasting tumor pathology upon RT due to their high photoelectric absorption coefficient and unique physiochemical properties. However, an analysis of their physical and morphological reaction to X-ray exposure is necessary to fully understand the AuNPs' behavior upon irradiation before treating the cells, since there are currently no studies on the evaluation of potential NP morphological changes upon specific irradiations. In this work, we synthesized two differently shaped AuNPs adopting two different techniques to achieve either spherical or star-shaped AuNPs. The spherical AuNPs were obtained with the Turkevich-Frens method, while the star-shaped AuNPs (AuNSs) involved a seed-mediated approach. We then characterized all AuNPs with Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Uv-Vis spectroscopy, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), zeta potential and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The next step involved the treatment of AuNPs with two different doses of X-radiation commonly used in RT, namely 1.8 Gy and 2 Gy, respectively. Following the X-rays' exposure, the AuNPs were further characterized to investigate their possible physicochemical and morphological alterations induced with the X-rays. We found that AuNPs do not undergo any alteration, concluding that they can be safely used in RT treatments. Lastly, the actin rearrangements of THP-1 monocytes treated with AuNPs were also assessed in terms of coherency. This is a key proof to evaluate the possible activation of an immune response, which still represents a big limitation for the clinical translation of NPs.
放射疗法（RT）是通过向肿瘤部位发射X射线束来引发DNA损伤。在这种方法中，保护健康细胞并将X射线束仅局限于恶性细胞至关重要。将金纳米颗粒（AuNP）整合到X射线方法中可被视为提高放射疗法疗效的有力工具。事实上，由于其高光电吸收系数和独特的物理化学性质，AuNP已被证明是放射疗法对抗肿瘤病理的优秀辅助手段。然而，在处理细胞之前，有必要分析它们对X射线照射的物理和形态反应，以便全面了解AuNP在照射后的行为，因为目前尚无关于特定照射后潜在纳米颗粒形态变化评估的研究。在这项工作中，我们采用两种不同技术合成了两种形状不同的AuNP，分别得到球形和星形AuNP。球形AuNP通过Turkevich-Frens方法获得，而星形AuNP（AuNS）采用种子介导法。然后，我们用透射电子显微镜（TEM）、紫外可见光谱、动态光散射（DLS）、zeta电位和傅里叶变换红外（FTIR）光谱对所有AuNP进行了表征。下一步是分别用放射疗法中常用的两种不同剂量的X射线，即1.8 Gy和2 Gy处理AuNP。在X射线照射后，对AuNP进行进一步表征，以研究X射线引起的可能的物理化学和形态变化。我们发现AuNP没有发生任何变化，得出它们可安全用于放射治疗的结论。最后，还评估了用AuNP处理的THP-1单核细胞的肌动蛋白重排的一致性。这是评估免疫反应可能激活的关键证据，而免疫反应仍然是纳米颗粒临床转化的一大限制。
