Chinese Use Nano to ‘Paste’ Living Tumor Cells to Electrodes

[grantnano]

Chinese Scientists Mix Gold Nanoparticles with Graphite Powder to Paste Living Tumor Cells to Electrodes

By mixing graphite powder with gold nanoparticles, researchers at Nanjing University in China have created a biocompatible material that can paste living tumor cells to electrodes. The resulting system enabled the investigators to begin studying the electrochemical response of tumor cells to anticancer drug exposure, investigations that could provide new insights into how tumor cells respond to a variety of chemical signals.

Reporting its work in the journal Biomaterials, a team headed by Huangxian Ju, Ph.D., demonstrated that human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells will stick to their gold nanoparticle/graphite paste and remain viable when exposed to virtually the same conditions under which these same cells will grow readily in tissue culture. When this paste is coated on the surface of an electrode, the cells that attach will generate reproducible electrochemical signals that depended on the exact composition of the growth medium. The researchers also found that normal human pancreatic cells and normal human liver cells produced a much smaller electrochemical signal when these cells are immobilized to an electrode using the nanoparticle paste.

Exposing electrode-bound tumor cells to the anticancer drug Adriamycin produced a marked change in the cells’ electrochemical signal that correlated with cell viability after treatment. If tests with other anticancer agents show the same type of response, this system could prove useful as a means of rapidly assessing the anticancer activity of potential drug molecules. Regardless of how those experiments work out, the ability to attach cancer cells to electrodes provides a new tool to study the biochemical responses of tumor cells to a wide variety of external signaling molecules.

This work is detailed in a paper titled, “Colloidal gold nanoparticle modified carbon paste interface for studies of tumor cell adhesion and viability.” An abstract is available through PubMed.

View abstract.

Source: NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer.

URL: http://nano.cancer.gov/news_center/nanotech_news_2005-11-28b.asp

This story was posted on 1 December 2005.