International Journal of Nanomedicine (Aug 2017)
Cytotoxicity induced by carbon nanotubes in experimental malignant glioma
Abstract
Samuel Romano-Feinholz,1,* Alelí Salazar-Ramiro,2,* Emilio Muñoz-Sandoval,3 Roxana Magaña-Maldonado,2 Norma Hernández Pedro,4 Edgar Rangel López,5 Alberto González Aguilar,1 Aurora Sánchez García,6 Julio Sotelo,2 Verónica Pérez de la Cruz,7 Benjamín Pineda2 1Division of Neurosurgery, 2Neuroimmunology and Neuro-oncology Unit, National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery (NINN), Mexico City, 3Division of Advanced Materials, IPICYT, San Luis Potosí, 4Experimental Oncology Laboratory, National Cancer Institute of Mexico, 5Excitatory Aminoacids Laboratory, 6Pathology Laboratory, 7Neurochemistry Unit, National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery (NINN), Mexico City, Mexico *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Despite multiple advances in the diagnosis of brain tumors, there is no effective treatment for glioblastoma. Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), which were previously used as a diagnostic and drug delivery tool, have now been explored as a possible therapy against neoplasms. However, although the toxicity profile of nanotubes is dependent on the physicochemical characteristics of specific particles, there are no studies exploring how the effectivity of the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is affected by different methods of production. In this study, we characterize the structure and biocompatibility of four different types of MWCNTs in rat astrocytes and in RG2 glioma cells as well as the induction of cell lysis and possible additive effect of the combination of MWCNTs with temozolomide. We used undoped MWCNTs (labeled simply as MWCNTs) and nitrogen-doped MWCNTs (labeled as N-MWCNTs). The average diameter of both pristine MWCNTs and pristine N-MWCNTs was ~22 and ~35 nm, respectively. In vitro and in vivo results suggested that these CNTs can be used as adjuvant therapy along with the standard treatment to increase the survival of rats implanted with malignant glioma. Keywords: carbon nanotubes, glioblastoma therapy, temozolomide, malignant glioma