Designing nanoparticles to fight cancer cells

Subject: Science and Technology

Context:

A team of researchers from IIT-Jodhpur have reported a breakthrough, at the heart of which is the use of specially designed nanoparticles.
Indeed, this breakthrough is an entirely new pathway of therapy, whose technological underpinnings can be applied in treating several other diseases, too.

About the process

Cancer cells, like all cells, die if they accumulate oxygen. Accumulation of oxygen happens when any molecule containing oxygen gets into the cell.
Such oxygen-containing molecules that damage cells are called ‘reactive oxidative species’ or ROS, better known as ‘free radicals’.
The oxygen in the ROS reacts with the many chemicals in the cells, destroying their functions, effectively killing them. This is called ‘oxidative stress’.
The team developed a special type of nanomaterial called ‘upconversion nanoparticles’, or UCNP, which is a cocktail of rare metals.
A useful property of UCNP is that when they absorb light (get energised) they produce so much ROS as to overwhelm the cancer cell’s antioxidant defence mechanism
A specific feature of lung cancer cells, called ‘epidermal growth factor receptor’, or EGFR is discovered to make entry into the cancer cell.
These receptors are a sort of entry point into a cell.
It is similar to the the spike proteins of the SARS CoV-2 virus which bind to the ‘ACE2 receptor’ in human cells to enter them.
After UCNP is inserted into the cancer cells through anti-EGFR antibody,the UCNP is nourished with Infra Red light too produce copious quantities of ROS, creates oxidative stress in the cancer cells which kills them.

Significance

The UCNP method can also be used in diagnosis. The nanoparticles glow when lit with IR — they can be a good biomarker to identify bad cells.
This opens up a completely new field of diagnosis called ‘nano-theranostics’.
Indeed, this treatment pathway could be extended to many diseases.

Upconversion nano particles

Upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) are a unique class of optical nanomaterials doped with lanthanide ions featuring a wealth of electronic transitions within the 4f electron shells.
These nanoparticles can up-convert two or more lower-energy photons into one high-energy photon.
Upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), have the ability to convert near infrared radiations with lower energy into visible radiations with higher energy via a nonlinear optical process.