Design and production of new nanodevices for future application in cancer therapy

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Ana Sofia Matias da
• Data de Publicação: 2011
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.6/1054
• topic: Nanotecnologia; Nanopartículas de ouro; Nanopartículas de ouro - Oligoaziridine; Nanopartículas de ouro - Polietilenoglicol maleimida; Nanotecnologia - Dispositivos médicos - Terapia do cancro

Nanotechnology is a multidisciplinary area of research that involves different knowledgements from, like life sciences, engineering and medicine. It has been used for different applications such as molecular imaging, molecular diagnosis and also targeted therapy. So far, ddifferent nanoscale devices have been produced, among them, inorganic nanoparticles, dendrimes, lipossomes, polymeric micelles, polymeric nanoparticles, nanotubes and nanofibers are some of the examples. Some of these particles exhibit unique optical and electrical properties allowing their course identification and precise location in the body. Gold nanoparticles are an example of inorganic particles with exceptional physico-chemical properties that demonstrate a huge potential for biomedicine applications. The present study aimed to produce gold nanoparticles by two different methods: the citrate reduction method developed by Frens in 1973 (method 1), and its functionalization with oligoaziridine, developed by the colleagues from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, as a capping agent (method 2). This second method relies on the fact that gold nanoparticles can be prepared in water directly by the complexation of the alkylamine molecules that act as reducing agents and consequently stabilizes gold nanoparticles. Moreover, gold nanoparticles produced by method 1 were also grafted with homofunctional maleimide poly(ethylene glycol) and then capped with oligoaziridine and the same parameters mentioned above were also evaluated. The cytotoxicity and cell internalization of the different nanoparticles herein produced, was evaluated through in vitro studies. The use of this new biosensor allow us to confirm the entry of the produced nanoparticles into cells opening new sights for the use of these particles as drug/gene delivery agents and/or as a new method for optimal imaging when methodologies like X-ray computed tomography or magnetic resonance cannot be used.