Nanoheaters and amoeboid-like motile cells: designing a new delivery system

Abstract

Pharmacological success is strongly determined by how a drug is delivered to its target structure. This is the reason why the development of improved and new drug delivery strategies is one of the greatest pharmacological research focuses. The present work proposes a novel cell-based drug delivery system based on the use of fast migrating amoeboid-like fragments without nucleus and the photo-induced thermal properties of gold nanoheaters as release triggers. The objective is to determine the practical feasibility of this concept following different strategies, starting with the use of zebrafish embryo cells. This type of cells was later rejected for this aim due to the impossibility to load them with nanoheaters using the tested procedures. HeLa cells were then deemed as good candidates to orientate future proof-of-concept tests in this direction.