Friday, 19th May 2006 (1358 views)

Antisense cancer drugs could be improved by the use of gold nanoparticles, new research shows.

In a study out today in the journal Science, scientists at Northwestern University have demonstrated a new way in which they can develop antisense drugs that can perform better than conventional treatments. The key was being able to deliver the drugs to bodily cells without them breaking down en route.

Attaching antisense DNA strands to a gold nanoparticle allows the DNA to become more stable and can then bind to a target messenger RNA more effectively.

The antisense nanoparticles were shown to have longer lifetimes and lower toxicity than commercial drugs such as Lipofectamine. Uptake into cells was shown to be better than 99 per cent.

Chad Mirkin, director of the Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Northwestern, said: "In the future, this exciting new class of antisense material could be used for the treatment of cancer and other diseases that have a genetic basis."

The results add to the number of scientific methods making use of gold nanoparticles. Recent research showed that they could also be used as 'biomarkers' to indicate the amount of drugs absorbed by cancer cells.

 

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