RESEARCH ARTICLE


Limitations of Adenoviral Vector-Mediated Delivery of Gold Nanoparticles to Tumors for Hyperthermia Induction



Vaibhav Saini1, 2, 5, Dmitri V. Martyshkin3, Victoria D. Towner1, Sergey B. Mirov 3, Maaike Everts*, 1, 4
1 Division of Human Gene Therapy, Departments of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Surgery, and the Gene Therapy Center
2 Division of Human Gene Therapy, Departments of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Surgery, and the Gene Therapy Center, Department of Physiology and Biophysics
3 Division of Human Gene Therapy, Departments of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Surgery, and the Gene Therapy Center, Department of Physics
4 Division of Human Gene Therapy, Departments of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Surgery, and the Gene Therapy Center, Division of Molecular and Cellular Pathology, Pathology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama
5 Division of Human Gene Therapy, Departments of Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Surgery, and the Gene Therapy Center, Screening Technologies Branch, Developmental Therapeutics Program, National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Frederick, Maryland

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2009
Volume: 2
First Page: 27
Last Page: 35
Publisher Id: TONMJ-2-27
DOI: 10.2174/1875933500902010027

Article History:

Received Date: 07/03/2009
Revision Received Date: 14/09/2009
Acceptance Date: 23/09/2009
Electronic publication date: 13/11/2009
Collection year: 2009

© 2009 Sainiet al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Assistant Professor, BMRII-#512, 901 19th Street South, Birmingham, AL 35294-2180, USA; Tel: 1-205-975-7288, 1-205-975-2960; Fax: 1-205-975-7949; E-mail: maaike@uab.edu


Abstract

Novel combinatorial treatment strategies are desired to achieve tumor eradication. In this regard, nanotechnology and gene therapy hold the potential to expand the available tumor treatment options. In particular, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been utilized for hyperthermic tumor cell ablation. Similarly, adenoviral (Ad) vectors have been utilized for targeting, imaging, and cancer gene therapy. Thus, to combine AuNP-mediated hyperthermia with Ad vector-based gene therapy, we have previously coupled AuNPs to Ad vectors. Herein we tested the capability of these AuNP-coupled Ad vectors for hyperthermic tumor cell ablation. Towards this end, we compared absorption characteristics of different sized AuNPs and determined that in our system 20 nm diameter AuNPs are suitable for laser induced hyperthermic tumor cell killing. In addition, we observed that AuNPs outside and inside the cell contribute differentially towards hyperthermia induction. Unfortunately, due to the limitation of delivery of required amounts of AuNPs to cells, we observed that AuNP-coupled Ad vectors are unable to kill tumor cells via hyperthermia. However, with future technological advances, it may become possible to realize the potential of the multifunctional AuNP-coupled Ad vector system for simultaneous targeting, imaging, and combined hyperthermia and gene therapy of tumors.

Keywords: Gold Nanoparticles, Hyperthermia, Tumor Treatment, Adenovirus.