IISc scientists develop technology for studying cancer cells

By NB Hombal

Bangalore, October 1st (SocialNews.XYZ) A team of interdisciplinary researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) breakthrough in identifying cancer cells using 3D tumor models and magnetically driven nanomotors. Has made great progress. These cells.

The team consists of researchers from the Center for Nanoscience and Engineering (CeNSE) and the Faculty of Molecular Regeneration and Development and Genetics (MRDG).

“The beautiful surprise is that in such an environment, aggressive cancer cells have become sticky and remodeled by being rich in certain charged sugars. “I did,” said Ramray Bhat, an assistant professor at MRDG and one of the senior authors.

“This charge could be used to target and kill a small population of cancer cells hidden in a normal counterpart, thus extending these studies to living animals.” He added.

In their study, published at Angewandte Chemie, the team piloted a spiral nanomotor remotely via an external magnetic field through a tumor model to sense, map, and quantify changes in the cellular environment. ..

“We believe that these findings will find use as biophysical probes for targeting strategies in future in vivo applications, quantifying cancer aggression, and studying the extracellular environment of cancer. The team concluded in the journal.

“This model contains both healthy and cancer cells embedded within a reconstructed basement membrane matrix, mimicking the breast cancer environment,” said a paper published by Angelwandete Chemie.

A memo published by IISc also highlights a new way for the study to target cancer cells by manipulating nanomotors in tumors and waiting for them to localize near cancerous sites. Insisted.

“When we tried to drive the nanomotor towards the cancer cells in the tumor model, they were observed to attach to the matrix near the cancer cells, but this was not observed near the normal cells,” said CeNSE Debayan Dasgupta. The co-lead author and PhD student said.

The IISc memo further claims that the extracellular matrix (ECM) is a complex 3D network of proteins and carbohydrates secreted by living cells around them.

“But when cancer cells secrete fresh substances into the ECM, the chemical and physical composition of the native ECM that surrounds healthy cells is destroyed and the local environment deteriorates.

Therefore, understanding how cancer cells change the cell’s microenvironment and quantitatively measuring these changes may be essential in understanding the progression of cancer. “Dasgupta Has disclosed.

In the current study, researchers found that as nanomotors approach cancer cell membranes, they attach more strongly to the matrix than normal cells. To measure how tightly the nanomotor is bound to the matrix, the team calculated the magnetic field strength required to overcome the adhesive force and move forward.

“This means that the cancer cells are doing something. So, when I made some measurements, the adhesive strength was the cell type, the strength of the interaction, and whether the nanomotor was the cell. It turns out that it depends on how close you are to the side, “explained Ambarish Ghosh, one of CeNSE’s senior associate professors.

“In the end, we ended up discovering the physical properties of a really important biological environment,” he said.

The reason nanomotors appear to be more attached to cancer cells is their charged ECM. Researchers have found that this may be due to the presence of 2,3-linked sialic acid, a sugar-binding molecule that negatively charges the cancer cell environment. They used fluorescent markers to visualize the distribution of these sugars and found that sialic acid was distributed up to 40 micrometers from the surface of cancer cells. This is the same distance it takes for a nanomotor to experience strong adhesion.

To counter this adhesive effect, the team coated the nanomotor with perfluorooctyltriethoxysilane (PFO) to protect the nanomotor from a charged environment.

“The coated nanomotors did not adhere to the matrix near the cancer cells, but the uncoated motors adhered to the matrix and interacted with the incoming nanomotors of the negatively charged cancer microenvironment, I’ve confirmed the fact that they can’t move, “Angewandete Chemie read.

Professor Gauche also used a study of nanomotor operability to show how to spatially distinguish between cancerous and non-cancerous cell niches designed to coexist in tissue-like environments. I added that.

Source: IANS

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