Engineering Rod-Shape Pure Drug Nanoparticles for Cancer Treatments

Therapeutic effectiveness of a drug depends on the solubility of drug molecules and selective delivery to disease sites. Bioavailability and selectivity of delivered drugs can be achieved by decreasing the size of drug molecules in the nanometer range, and coating their surfaces with a targeting agent, respectively. However, the effect of the geometry of pure drug nanoparticles on inducing therapeutic responses in target cells has not been studied yet. Our previous work showed that nanorod-shaped drug delivery systems induce higher therapeutic responses than spherical-shaped nanoparticles. The objectives of this study are to i) formulate rod-shaped pure drug nanoparticles of various aspect ratios (length to diameter ratio), ii) characterize them, and ii) measure their efficiency to induce therapeutic responses in cancer cells. The surfaces of these rod-shaped drug nanoparticles will be coated with a targeting antibody in order to deliver drugs specifically to cancer cells. The size, shape and surface charges of the antibody-coated pure drug nanoparticles will be measured using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), SEM and zeta potential, respectively. Intracellular delivery of these drug nanoparticles and their efficiency in inducing cancer cell death will be investigated in vitro. The results highlight the importance of pure drug nanoparticle shape to enhance therapeutic responses in disease cells.