Novel gold nanocomplex for cancer drug delivery

Anti-tumour drugs could target the diseased cell

Using gold nanoparticles coated with a simple organic molecule (porphyrin), researchers have designed an efficient drug nanocarrier. The nanocarrier was found to effectively deliver doxorubicin (anti-tumour drug) to the nucleus of the diseased cell and bring about programmed cell death.
Porphyrin was armoured on the gold nanosurface via continuous stirring method. “Porphyrin is a simple organic compound and it gives the necessary protection and stability to the nanosurface. Porphyrins are essential co-factors in many human proteins such as hemoglobin and so it can escape from the macrophages in our body,” explains the Senior Scientist  and one of the corresponding authors of the paper published recently.

The porphyrin molecule was found to be uniformly distributed on gold nanoparticles and the porphyrin–gold complex was stable.

The anti-tumour drug doxorubicin was then successfully loaded on the porphyrin–gold nanosurface. “Doxorubicin is selectively released when it reaches the low-pH environment seen in cancerous cells,” explains a research scholar at the institute and one of the first authors of the paper.

Activity of the complex

Its activity was then tested on brain and lung cancer cells and normal healthy cells. The porphyrin–gold complex without the drug showed no toxicity to healthy and cancerous cells. The nanoparticles coated with the drug showed very low toxicity to normal cells and caused programmed cell death both in brain and lung cancer cells.

Multidrug resistance is one of the major barriers in cancer cells, where the drug is quickly ejected out, reducing the effective drug concentrations within the cells and thus decreases its sensitivity. 

“We found that the drug-coated nanoparticles were retained well inside the cells thus showing higher activity,” says another research scholar at the institute and one of the first authors of this paper.

“There are several pathways by which the drug can damage the DNA. Currently we are studying the pathways, and trying to design a system that can release the drug more efficiently. We are also studying how the system works in real scenario of tumour model,” says one of the corresponding authors of the paper.

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