Metallic nanoparticles, in particular gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), offer a wide spectrum of applications in biomedicine. A crucial issue is their cytotoxicity, which depends greatly on various factors, including morphology of nanoparticles. Because metallic nanoparticles have an effect on cell membrane integrity, their shape and size may affect the viability of cells, due to their different geometries as well as physical and chemical interactions with cell membranes. Variations in the size and shape of gold nanoparticles may indicate particular nanoparticle morphologies that provide strong cytotoxicity effects. Synthesis of different sized and shaped bare AuNPs was performed with spherical (~ 10 nm), nanoflowers (~ 370 nm), nanorods (~ 41 nm), nanoprisms (~ 160 nm) and nanostars (~ 240 nm) morphologies. These nanostructures were characterized and interacting with cancer (HeLa) and normal (HEK293T) cell lines and cell viability tests were performed by WST-1 tests and fluorescent live/dead cell imaging experiments. It was shown that various shapes and sizes of gold nanostructures may affect the viability of the cells. Gold nanospheres and nanorods proved to be more toxic than star, flower and prism gold nanostructures. This may be attributed to their small size and aggregation process. This is the first report concerning a comparison of cytotoxic profile in vitro with a wide spectrum of bare AuNPs morphology. The findings show their possible use in biomedical applications.

Polydopamine (PDA)-coated magnetic nanoparticles functionalized with mono-6-thio-β-cyclodextrin (SH-βCD) were obtained and characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Nuclear and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (NMR and MRI), and doxorubicin (DOXO)-loading experiments. The liver cancer cellular internalization of DOXO-loaded nanoparticles was investigated by confocal imaging microscopy. Synthesized nanomaterials bearing a chemotherapeutic drug and a layer of polydopamine capable of absorbing near-infrared light show high performance in the combined chemo- and photothermal therapy (CT-PTT) of liver cancer due to the synergistic effect of both modalities as demonstrated in vitro. Moreover, our material exhibits improved T2 contrast properties, which have been verified using Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill pulse sequence and MRI Spin-Echo imaging of the nanoparticles dispersed in the agarose gel phantoms. Therefore, the presented results cast new light on the preparation of polydopamine-based magnetic theranostic nanomaterials, as well as on the proper methodology for investigation of magnetic nanoparticles in high field MRI experiments. The prepared material is a robust theranostic nanoasystem with great potential in nanomedicine.

The growing incidence of cancer is a problem for modern medicine, since the therapeutic efficacy of applied modalities is still not satisfactory in terms of patients’ survival rates, especially in the case of patients with brain tumors. The destructive influence of chemotherapy and radiotherapy on healthy cells reduces the chances of full recovery. With the development of nanotechnology, new ideas on cancer therapy, including brain tumors, have emerged. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is one of these. It utilizes nanoparticles (NPs) that can convert the light, preferably in the near-infrared (NIR) region, into heat. In this paper, we report the use of nanodiamonds (NDs) conjugated with biomimetic polydopamine (PDA) and indocyanine green (ICG) for glioblastoma cancer PTT therapy. The obtained materials were thoroughly analyzed in terms of their PTT effectiveness, as well as their physicochemical properties. The performed research demonstrated that NDs@PDA@ICG can be successfully applied in the photothermal therapy of glioblastoma for PTT and exhibited high photothermal conversion efficiency η above 40%, which is almost 10 times higher than in case of bare NDs. In regard to our results, our material was found to lead to a better therapeutic outcome and higher eradication of glioblastoma cells, as demonstrated in vitro.

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This study discusses the value of polymer electrospun materials in three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds and antibacterial wound dressings for potential dental applications.