Polyethylene glycol-coated ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles-coupled sialyl Lewis X nanotheranostic platform for nasopharyngeal carcinoma imaging and photothermal therapy

Abstract

Background Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a type of head and neck malignant tumor with a high incidence in specific regional distribution, and its traditional therapies face some challenges. It has become an urgent need to seek new therapeutic strategies without or with low toxicity and side effects. At present, more and more researchers has been attracting attention by nanotheranostic platform. Therefore, our team synthesized the polyethylene glycol-coated ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles-coupled sialyl Lewis X (USPIO-PEG-sLex) nanotheranostic platform with high temperature pyrolysis. Results The USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles had excellent photothermal conversion property, and the temperature of USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles solution increased with its concentration and power density of near-infrared (NIR) on 808 nm wavelengths. Five USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles with different concentrations of 0 mg/ml, 0.025 mg/ml, 0.05 mg/ml, 0.1 mg/ml and 0.2 mg/ml were prepared. The biological toxicity results showed that the viability of NPC 5-8F cells is related to the concentration of USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles and the culture time (P < 0.001). The results of photothermal therapy (PTT) in vitro indicated that the viability of 5-8F cells decreased significantly with the concentration of USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles increases (P < 0.001), and the viability of NPC 5-8F cells were 91.04% ± 5.20%, 77.83% ± 3.01%, 73.48% ± 5.55%, 59.50% ± 10.98%, 17.11% ± 3.14%, respectively. The USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles could target the tumor area, and reduce the T2* value of tumor tissue. The T2* values of tumor pre- and post-injection were 30.870 ± 5.604 and 18.335 ± 4.351, respectively (P < 0.001). In addition, USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles as a photothermal agent for PTT could effectively inhibit tumor progression. The ratio of volume change between tail vein injection group, control group, nanoparticles without laser irradiation group and blank group after 5 treatments were 3.04 ± 0.57, 5.80 ± 1.06, 8.09 ± 1.96, 7.89 ± 2.20, respectively (P < 0.001). Conclusions Our synthesized USPIO-PEG-sLex nanotheranostic platform, and it may be become a new strategy for the treatment of NPC. Graphic Abstract

Multi-Modal Optical Imaging and Combined Phototherapy of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Based on a Nanoplatform

“…69–71 In 2021, Liu et al synthesized a polyethylene glycol-coated ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle-coupled sialyl Lewis X (USPIO-PEG-sLex) nanotheranostic platform using high-temperature pyrolysis. 14 As shown in Figure 5 , the results indicated that the temperature of the tumor tissue in the tail vein injection group was higher than that in the control group ( Figure 5A and B ). Changes in tumor pre- and post-treatment between the tail vein injection and control groups were also recorded accordingly ( Figure 5C ).…”

“…Creative Commons license and disclaimer available from: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode . 14 …”

Hyperthermia combined with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in the treatment of primary and metastatic tumors

“…Recent studies have found that PTT had a good effect in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Qinmin et al invented a USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticle as a photothermal agent for PTT, which proved that it could effectively inhibit the growth and promote apoptosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in vivo and in vitro, and there was no metastasis or invasion in the xenotransplantation model (98). This has also been well established by Naveen et al, and the role of PTT in inducing apoptosis could be related to the surge in ROS level (99).…”

Research Progress of Photothermal Nanomaterials in Multimodal Tumor Therapy

“… Schematic diagram of PTT (using animal experimental research as a model) ( 34 ). Reproduced with permission from Liu et al., 2021.…”

“…Moreover, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved its application in the human body (109). Liu et al (34) synthesized USPIO-PEG-sLe x , w h i c h c o n s i s t s o f n a n o c o m p o s i t e s o f u l t r a s m a l l superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles coated with polyethylene glycol (PEG) coupled with Sialyl Lewis X. The USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles have good photothermal conversion properties, and the temperature and concentration of the solution are positively correlated with the power density of NIR on 808-nm wavelengths.…”