Cancer-Cell-Phenotype-Dependent Differential Intracellular Trafficking of Unconjugated Quantum Dots

Abstract

A diverse array of nanoparticles, including quantum dots (QDs), metals, polymers, liposomes, and dendrίmers, are being investigated as therapeutics and imaging agents in cancer diseases. However, the role of the cancer-cell phenotype on the uptake and intracellular fate of nanoparticles in cancer cells remains poorly understood. Reported here is that differences in cancer- cell phenolypes can lead to significant differences in intracellular sorting, trafficking, and localization of nanoparticles. Unconjugated anionic QDs demonstrate dramatically different intracellular profiles in three closely related human-prostate-cancer cells used in the investigation: PC3, PC3-flu, and PC3-PSMA. QDs demonstrate punctated intracellular localization throughout the cytoplasm in PC3 cells. In contrast, the nanoparticles localize mainly at a single juxtanuclear location (" dot-of-dots") inside the perinuclear recycling compartment in PC3-PSMA cells, where they co- localize with transferrin and the prostate-specific membrane antigen. The results indicate that nanoparticle sorting and transport is influenced by changes in cancer-cell phenotype and can have significant implications in the design and engineering of nanoscale drug delivery and imaging systems for advanced tumors

Department(s)

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

Keywords and Phrases

Intracellular transport; Microtubules; Nanoparticle trafficking; Perinuclear recycling com-partment; Quantum dots

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1613-6810

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2009 John Wiley & Sons Inc., All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Feb 2009

PubMed ID

19089841

Link to Full Text

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