Articolo in rivista, 2017, ENG, 10.1038/srep46513

In vitro biocompatibility study of sub-5 nm silica-coated magnetic iron oxide fluorescent nanoparticles for potential biomedical application

Foglia, Sabrina; Ledda, Mario; Fioretti, Daniela; Iucci, Giovanna; Papi, Massimiliano; Capellini, Giovanni; Lolli, Maria Grazia; Grimaldi, Settimio; Rinaldi, Monica; Lisi, Antonella

Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism (IMEM), Department of Engineering, ICT and Technologies for Energy and Transportation, National Research Council (CNR), Parma, Italy; Institute of Translational Pharmacology (IFT), Department of Biomedical Sciences, National Research Council (CNR), Rome, Italy; Department of Science, University Roma Tre, Rome, Italy; Institute of Physics, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy

Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs), for their intriguing properties, have attracted a great interest as they can be employed in many different biomedical applications. In this multidisciplinary study, we synthetized and characterized ultrafine 3 nm superparamagnetic water-dispersible nanoparticles. By a facile and inexpensive one-pot approach, nanoparticles were coated with a shell of silica and contemporarily functionalized with fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) dye. The obtained sub-5 nm silica-coated magnetic iron oxide fluorescent (sub-5 SIO-Fl) nanoparticles were assayed for cellular uptake, biocompatibility and cytotoxicity in a human colon cancer cellular model. By confocal microscopy analysis we demonstrated that nanoparticles as-synthesized are internalized and do not interfere with the CaCo-2 cell cytoskeletal organization nor with their cellular adhesion. We assessed that they do not exhibit cytotoxicity, providing evidence that they do not affect shape, proliferation, cellular viability, cell cycle distribution and progression. We further demonstrated at molecular level that these nanoparticles do not interfere with the expression of key differentiation markers and do not affect pro-inflammatory cytokines response in Caco-2 cells. Overall, these results showed the in vitro biocompatibility of the sub-5 SIO-Fl nanoparticles promising their safe employ for diagnostic and therapeutic biomedical applications.

Scientific reports (Nature Publishing Group) 7 , pp. 46513-1–46513-13

Keywords

ultrafine Fe3O4 nanoparticles, functionalization, nanomedicine, superparamagnetic

CNR authors

Grimaldi Settimio, Lolli Maria Grazia, Lisi Antonella, Foglia Sabrina, Rinaldi Monica, Ledda Mario, Fioretti Daniela

CNR institutes

IMEM – Istituto dei materiali per l'elettronica ed il magnetismo, IFT – Istituto di Farmacologia Traslazionale