Investigation of Copper Cysteamine Nanoparticles as a New Type of Radiosensitiers for Colorectal Carcinoma Treatment

Zhipeng Liu, Li Xiong, Guoqing Ouyang, Lun Ma, Sunil Sahi, Kunpeng Wang, Liangwu Lin, He Huang, Xiongying Miao, Wei Chen*, Yu Wen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

69 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Copper Cysteamine (Cu-Cy) is a new photosensitizer and a novel radiosensitizer that can be activated by light, X-ray and microwave to produce singlet oxygen for cancer treatment. However, the killing mechanism of Cu-Cy nanoparticles on cancer cells is not clear yet and Cu-Cy nanoparticles as novel radiosensitizers have never been tested on colorectal cancers. Here, for the first time, we investigate the treatment efficiency of Cu-Cy nanoparticles on SW620 colorectal cells and elucidate the underlying mechanisms of the effects. The results show that X-ray activated Cu-Cy nanoparticles may kill SW620 cancerscells is in a dose-dependent manner. The JC-1 staining shows the mitochondrial membrane potential is decreased after the treatment. The observations confirm that Cu-Cy nanoparticles may improve X-ray radiotherapy on cancer treatment and X-ray activated Cu-Cy nanoparticles can be efficiently destroy colorectal cancer cells by inducing apoptosis as well as autophagy. As a new type of radiosensitizers and photosensitizers, Cu-Cy nanoparticles have a good potential for colorectal cancer treatment and the discovery of autophagy induced by X-ray irradiated Cu-Cy nanoparticles sheds a good insight to the mechanism of Cu-Cy for cancer treatment as a new radiosensitizers.

Original languageEnglish
Article number9290
JournalScientific Reports
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2017
Externally publishedYes

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