Folic acid decorated mesoporous silica nanospheres loaded with gadolinium for breast cancer cell imaging

Safdar Zare Hosseinabadi, Sepideh Safari, Mehdi Mirzaei, Elham Mohammadi, Seyed Mohammad Amini and Bita Mehravi

Abstract

In cancer cells, some of the transporters are overexpressed. Therefore targeted contrast agent delivery by functionalized nanoparticles is probable to advanced molecular imaging and cancer cell identification in the early stages of cancer. In this research, folic acid-modified mesoporous silica nanospheres, loaded with gadolinium, were prepared and characterized by various techniques. FSG nanoprobe cellular uptake was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively by ICP-AES, flow cytometry, and fluorescent microscopy in cell lines which expressed different levels of folic acid receptors. The cellular uptake of FSG nanoprobe by cancer cells was about 62% which is 2.6 times higher than cellular uptake of nanoprobe without folic acid targeting group. The average of FSG nanoprobe cellular uptake was 0.6 ± 0.1 pg Gd³⁺ per cancer cell without any toxicity. The r₁ relaxivity of this nanoprobe in cancer cells was measured at 10.1 ± 6.0 mM⁻¹ s⁻¹ per Gd³⁺ base. The results demonstrated that the present synthesized nanoprobe is promising one for cancer cell detection and delivering a sufficient amount of Gd³⁺ as contrast agents into cancer cells.