PUBLICATION
In Vivo Recognition of Human Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor by Molecularly Imprinted Polymers
- Authors
- Cecchini, A., Raffa, V., Canfarotta, F., Signore, G., Piletsky, S., Macdonald, M.P., Cuschieri, A.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-170330-13
- Date
- 2017
- Source
- Nano Letters 17(4): 2307-2312 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Amino Acids/chemistry
- Animals
- Cell Line, Tumor
- Embryo, Nonmammalian/metabolism
- Epitopes
- Fluorescent Dyes/chemistry
- Heterografts
- Humans
- Melanoma/metabolism
- Molecular Imprinting*
- Nanoparticles/chemistry*
- Particle Size
- Polymers/chemistry*
- Protein Binding
- Recombinant Proteins/analysis
- Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A/analysis*
- Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A/metabolism
- Zebrafish/metabolism
- PubMed
- 28350162 Full text @ Nano Lett.
Citation
Cecchini, A., Raffa, V., Canfarotta, F., Signore, G., Piletsky, S., Macdonald, M.P., Cuschieri, A. (2017) In Vivo Recognition of Human Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor by Molecularly Imprinted Polymers. Nano Letters. 17(4):2307-2312.
Abstract
One of the mechanisms responsible for cancer-induced increased blood supply in malignant neoplasms is the overexpression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Several antibodies for VEGF targeting have been produced for both imaging and therapy. Molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles, nanoMIPs, however, offer significant advantages over antibodies, in particular in relations to improved stability, speed of design, cost and control over functionalization. In the present study, the successful production of nanoMIPs against human VEGF is reported for the first time. NanoMIPs were coupled with quantum dots (QDs) for cancer imaging. The composite nanoparticles exhibited specific homing towards human melanoma cell xenografts, overexpressing hVEGF, in zebrafish embryos. No evidence of this accumulation was observed in control organisms. These results indicate that nanoMIPs are promising materials which can be considered for advancing molecular oncological research, in particular when antibodies are less desirable due to their immunogenicity or long production time.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping