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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Iron oxides nanoparticles and titanate nanotubes dedicated to multimodal imaging and anticancer therapy

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description

The new implementations of nanoparticles in the medical field are one of the essential factors of the medical progress expected at the beginning of this XXIst century. Thus, the domain of the medical imaging is also affected by this technological evolution. This work consisted in developing theranostic probes with iron oxides nanoparticles (SPIO) and titanate nanotubes (TiONts) for multimodal imaging (magnetic/nuclear or magnetic/optical) and also possessing a therapeutic effect (hyperthermia/PDT or radiosensitization/PDT).The titanate nanotubes of this study have an average length of about 150 nm and were obtained by Kasuga's hydrothermal synthesis. These nanotubes present an outside diameter of about 10 nm and an intern cavity of 4 nm. On the other hand, iron oxides nanoparticles were synthesized by soft chemistry ("Massart" method). These spinel-like iron oxides nanoparticles have a crystallite size of 9 nm in diameter and exhibit a superparamagnetic behavior which was highlighted by FC / ZFC measurements.To get these nanoparticles ready to receive molecules of biological interest, two linkers of more reactive organic functions (APTES: NH2 or PHA: COOH) were grafted to the surface of these two types of nanoparticles. Their presence was shown by different techniques (XPS, IR, UV-vis). The amount of grafted linkers was determined by TGA and in all cases this amount is close to 5 molecules/nm2. First, titanate nanotubes were coated by a macrocyclic chelating agent (0.2 DOTA/nm2). After radiolabelling with indium 111, the TiONts – DOTA[In] nanohybrids were injected in Swiss nude mice and observed by SPECT/CT imaging to characterize their biodistribution. The SPECT/CT images and the radioactivity measured in each organ showed that after one hour, nanotubes are located in lungs and in urine. Then, the nanotubes are gradually eliminated and are only found in urines after 24 hours. The same macrocyclic agent was grafted to the SPIO’s surface for the creation of multimodal probes MRI/SPECT or MRI/PET. Alongside this study, a fluorophore (Zinc phthalocyanine) was also grafted to the surface of nanoparticles. The synthesized SPIO – Pc nanohybrid has the required properties of bimodal imaging MRI/OI probe thanks to his emission wavelength around 670 nm and its relaxivity is about 70 L.mmolFe3O4-1.s-1. Furthermore, nanohybrids were coated by PEG to make them stealth, biocompatible and stable.In this study, the toxicity of most nanohybrids was evaluated by the in vivo zebrafish model. The studied nanohybrids did not present any toxicity, hatching disruption or malformation on zebrafish larvae.