Study on cancer stem cell labeling and inhibition efficiency of LV3 nanocomplex in vitro

Abstract

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are the cancer cells that have abilities to self-renew, differentiate into defined progenies, and to initiate and maintain tumour growth. They also contribute to cancer metastasis and therapeutic resistance, both of which are the principal causes of cancer mortality. Therefore, finding efficient fluorescent materials for CSC labelling and basic research is an urgent need. Thus, this research is focused on using a rare-earth element, which is the fluorescent Tb3+ nano-ion, and the CD133 monoclonal antibody to create a CSC-targeting nanocomplex (LV3). Tb3+ nanorods were silica-surface treated and -NH2 activated before being conjugated with the monoclonal antibody (mAb) against CD133, a typical CSC surface marker. The use of robust fluorescent Tb3+ nanorods was to decrease the toxicity of a high-dose prober while the CD133 mAb would increase the CSC’s specific binding capacity of the LV3. The fluorescent properties of the coupled LV3 complex were measured and CSC-targeting label activities on the pluripotent human embryonal carcinoma cell line (NTERA-2) were observed. The obtained results presented fluorescent images of LV3 exposed to NTERA-2 cells under microscopy. LV3 also demonstrated that it effectively labelled up to 99.68% of the tested NTERA-2 cells. By contrast, LV3 only labelled 1.44% of the CCD-18Co human healthy cells. On the other hand, LV3 exhibited anti-CSC activity, which inhibited 11.14% in vitro and 30.5% tumourspheroid growth of NTERA-2 cells. In conclusion, LV3 showed its efficiency in specific CSC target labelling and inhibition, which could be further applied to fundamental and preclinical research.

Keywords

• cancer stem cells
• CCD-18Co
• CD133 monoclonal antibody
• ion Tb3
• LV3
• NTERA-2