title: Apomaghemite as a doxorubicin carrier for anticancer drug delivery.
abstract: Protein cages have well-defined structures and can be chemically and biologically engineered in many ways, making them useful platforms for drug delivery applications. Taking advantage of the unique structure feature of apoferritin, a new theranostic nanocarrier is proposed herein. The apoferritin protein is effective for the encapsulation of maghemite nanoparticles and for loading a significant dose of doxorubicin (DOX) drug. This simultaneous loading of maghemite nanoparticles and DOX has been achieved using either co-encapsulation or surface-binding approaches. Maghemite nanoparticles coated with the protein apoferritin are an effective long-term MRI liver contrast agent and we report here that additionally they can serve as an anticancer drug-delivery system. In particular we show that maghemite-containing apoferritin can sustain the DOX delivery under period of 10 to 25 days depending on the environmental conditions.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Rocío
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jurado
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Paulina
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Frączek
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Mélissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Droetto
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Purificación
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sánchez
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Elsa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Valero
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Domínguez-Vera
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Inorgánica. Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Granada. Avda Fuentenueva s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain. Electronic address: ngalvez@ugr.es.
authors.forename: Natividad
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gálvez
mesh_terms: D000903:Antibiotics, Antineoplastic / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D004317:Doxorubicin / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D005260:Female; D005290:Ferric Compounds / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission
chemical_list: D000903:Antibiotics, Antineoplastic; D005290:Ferric Compounds; C000499:ferric oxide; D004317:Doxorubicin
keywords: Apoferritin protein; Drug delivery; Magnetic nanoparticles