Making organs transparent to improve nanomedicine

Toronto, ON – Treating a disease without causing side effects is one of the big promises of nanoparticle technology. But fulfilling it remains a challenge. One of the obstacles is that researchers have a hard time seeing where nanoparticles go once they’re inside various parts of the body. But now one team has developed a way to help overcome this problem — by making tissues and organs clearer in the lab. Their study on mice appeared in April 2016 in the journal ACS Nano.

Scientists are trying to design nanoparticles that deliver a therapeutic cargo directly to a disease site. This specific targeting could help avoid the nasty side effects that patients feel when a drug goes to heathy areas in the body. But barriers, such as blood vessel walls, can divert particles from reaching their intended destination. To get around such obstacles, scientists need a better understanding of how nanoparticles interact with structures inside the body. Current techniques, however, are limited. The University of Toronto Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering’s Dr. Warren C. W. Chan and colleagues wanted to develop a method to better track where nanoparticles go within tissues.

The researchers injected an acrylamide hydrogel into organs and tissues removed from mice. The gel linked all of the molecules together, except for the lipids, which are responsible for making tissues appear opaque. The lipids easily washed away, leaving the tissues clear but otherwise intact. Using this technique, the researchers could image nanoparticles at a depth of more than 1 millimeter, which is 25 times deeper than existing methods. In addition to helping scientists understand how nanoparticles interact with tumors and organs, the new approach could also contribute to tissue engineering, implant and biosensor applications, say the researchers.

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The researchers acknowledge funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.