EVALUATION OF CELLULAR UPTAKE AND TOXICITY OF PLATINUM NANODENDRITES AS THERANOSTIC AGENT

Abstract

Platinum nanodendrite (PtND) is a potential theranostic agent for improving the therapeutic index of radiotherapy. Optimally, PtND needs to be taken up efficiently by cancer cells and pose no inherent toxicity except during radiotherapy irradiation. Thus, this assessment was performed to elucidate the uptake and toxicity of PtND towards different cancer cell lines (HeLa, MCF-7, and MDA-MB-231). For the uptake study, the cells were seeded onto the glass slides until confluency and treated with 0.1 mM PtNDs overnight. The treated cells were then fixed and stained using the crystal violet staining method before being evaluated using bright field microscopy and ImageJ software. The toxicity study was completed by using the Prestoblue® cell viability assay, where the cells were first treated with PtNDs for up to 3 days before they were exposed to the Prestoblue® reagent and measured for their fluorescence values. The result shows that the PtNDs mainly reside in the cytoplasm of the cells. The particles agglomerated in cells causing the increment in particle size between 600-1200 nm on average. The cytotoxicity studies revealed that the PtNDs’ toxic effect is dependent on the PtND concentration, size, treatment time and type of cells used. Overall, HeLa cells show better resistance toward PtND than MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells, with non-toxic PtND concentrations of up to 0.1 mM. In conclusion, PtND shows promising pharmacokinetic properties to be used as a theranostic agent. However, their biocompatibility profiles require further verification to ensure that they are safe for theranostic applications.