Gold nanoparticles could increase the effectiveness of cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, by acting from the inside of tumors and thus making drugs more effective.
A study published in the journal Angewandte Chemie demonstrated the ability of gold nanoparticles to generate in situ potent anticancer drugs from inert molecules. Gold would act as a catalyst for the chemical reactions of drugs used in chemotherapy, that is, that would accelerate the chemical processes of drugs in the tumor, preventing these effects from reaching the healthy cells of the body. The gold is ideal to fulfill this accelerating function due to its high biocompatibility."The main problem of chemotherapy treatments are the side effects in various organs due to the toxicity of the molecules that are used to fight cancer. For this reason, alternative routes are
explored from nanotechnology, for example, transporting drugs to the tumor using nanoparticles, "explained one of the authors of the research, Jesús Santamaría.
The conclusions of this work suggest a different way: the drug would be supplied to the patient in its inert form and only converted to the toxic form locally, thanks to the gold nanoparticles that a surgeon would previously implant in the tumor.
The way in which the gold nanoparticles are implanted in the tumor is not simple: they must be camouflaged in a resin microcapsule which, in the case of the experiment, was implanted in the brain of a zebrafish. There, scientists managed to catalyze (ie, accelerate) a chemical reaction generating fluorescent compounds. Thus, the work reveals the possibility of carrying out catalysis in living organisms using tiny particles of gold.
"We have discovered the new gold properties that until now have not been explored and the study shows that the metal could be used to release drugs inside the tumors in a very safe way. Much remains to be done before it can be used in patients, but it is an important step forward, "concluded Asier Unciti-Broceta of the University of Edinburgh Medical Research Council Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine.
These results offer new hope in the fight against cancer and have been obtained thanks to the collaboration of scientists from the Institute of Nanoscience of Aragon (INA) of the University of Zaragoza, Víctor Sebastián, Silvia Irusta and Jesús Santamaría, with researchers from the Center for Cancer Research at the University of Edinburgh, led by Dr. Unciti-Broceta.