The cytotoxic effects of lipidic formulated gold porphyrin nanoparticles for the treatment of neuroblastoma

Puiyan Lee¹, Yifan Zhu¹, Jessie J Yan², Raymond WY Sun², Wei Hao1, Xuelai Liu¹, Chi-Ming Che², Kenneth KY Wong¹

¹Department of Surgery, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, ²Department of Chemistry and Open Laboratory of Chemical Biology of the Institute of Molecular Technology for Drug Discovery and Synthesis, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Objective: Nanotechnology has been identified as a promising platform in the improvement of the design and development of drug delivery systems. In the present study we investigated the potential of lipidic nanoparticles consisting of gold porphyrin for the treatment of neuroblastoma.

Materials and methods: To characterize the size of the lipidic gold porphyrin nanoparticles, we used transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The in vitro cytotoxic effect on neuroblastoma activity was examined using XTT cell proliferation assay, then IC₅₀ values were calculated. In vivo safety and toxicity were studied using intraperitoneal injection of gold porphyrin nanoparticles into normal animals. Finally, tumor size measurement and animal survival were studied to investigate the therapeutic effect of lipidic gold porphyrin nanoparticles on neuroblastoma growth.

Results: We found that incorporation of gold porphyrin into lipidic nanoparticles resulted in a 16-fold increase in size. Subsequent in vitro and in vivo cytotoxicity studies further showed that the lipidic gold porphyrin nanoparticles could decrease systemic toxicity, as well as inhibiting tumor growth following administration into the neuroblastoma bearing mice.

Conclusion: The delivery of lipidic gold porphyrin nanoparticles by incorporation with lipidic formulation is feasible approach to treat neuroblastoma. We await further studies to evaluate tumor killing kinetics.

Keywords: nanoparticles, lipidic formulation, gold porphyrin, neuroblastoma