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An international team of researchers led by Morteza Mahmoudi of Michigan State University has developed a new method to better understand how nanodrugs – very small but very complex emerging diagnostics and therapies – interact with patient biomolecules.
Nanoscopic particle drugs hold the promise of being more effective than current therapies while reducing side effects. But subtle complexities have confined most of these particles to research labs and their clinical use, said Mahmoudi, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiology and the Precision Health program.
“There has been a huge investment of taxpayer dollars in nanomedicine cancer research, but this research has not been successfully translated in the clinic,” Mahmoudi said. “The biological effects of nanoparticles, the way the body interacts with nanoparticles, remains poorly understood. And they must be examined in detail.
Mahmoudi’s team have now introduced a unique combination of microscopy techniques to allow a more detailed examination of these biological effects, which the researchers described in the review. Nature communications, published online 25 January.
The team’s methods allowed researchers to see significant differences between particles exposed to human plasma, the part of cell-free blood that contains biomolecules including proteins, enzymes and antibodies.
These biological bits cling to a nanoparticle, creating a coating called corona (not to be confused with the new coronavirus), the Latin word for crown. This crown contains clues about how nanoparticles interact with a patient’s biology. Now Mahmoudi and his colleagues have shown how to get an unprecedented view of this crown.
“For the first time, we are able to image the 3-D structure of particles coated with biomolecules at the nano level,” said Mahmoudi. “This is a useful approach to getting hard, useful data for nanomedicines, to get the kind of data that can affect scientists’ decisions about the safety and efficacy of nanoparticles.”
While work like this ultimately helps bring therapeutic nanodrugs into the clinic, Mahmoudi is not optimistic that wide approval will happen anytime soon. There is still a lot to learn about particles. Also, one of the things researchers understand very well – that tiny variations in these tiny drugs can have a disproportionate impact – was highlighted by this study.
The researchers saw that coronas of nanoparticles from the same batch, exposed to the same human plasma, could cause a variety of reactions in a single dose patient.
Nevertheless, Mahmoudi sees an opportunity. He thinks these particles could shine as diagnostic tools instead of drugs. Rather than trying to treat disease with nanoscale medicine, he believes insightful particles would be well suited for early detection of disease. For example, Mahmoudi’s group has already shown this diagnostic potential for cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.
“We could become more proactive if we used nanoparticles as a diagnostic,” he said. “When you can detect the disease at an early stage, it becomes easier to treat it.”
Source of story:
Material provided by University of Michigan. Original written by Matt Davenport. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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