Design and development of peptide-functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles: Investigation of ultrasound imaging for the diagnosis and treatment of cancers

Abstract

Iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs) with superparamagnetic characteristics were synthesized and coated with glypican-3 ligand peptide (GPC3), resulting in GPC3@Fe3O4 NPs. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) were used to characterize the fabricated GPC3@Fe3O4 NPs, and dynamic light scattering measurements were performed to determine the average particle surface charge. The morphology and size distributions of the uncoated Fe3O4 NPs were determined using HRTEM images, which revealed uniform-sized GPC3@Fe3O4 NPs with a particle size of approximately 10 nm. An in vitro cell proliferation assay was performed on non-cancerous HEK-293 cells to examine the cytotoxicity of free Fe3O4 NPs, free GPC3, and GPC3@Fe3O4 NPs. The potential of the engineered GPC3@Fe3O4 NPs to act as contrast agents for enhanced ultrasound imaging was also examined in vitro. The results showed that GPC3@Fe3O4 NPs significantly improved the effective ultrasound contrast analysis for cancer detection and treatment.