Institute Seminar Wednesday June 1st Tore-Geir Iversen

Cellular delivery and intracellular transport of nanoparticles:
Induction of changes in normal cellular transport

Tore-Geir Iversen, Dept of Biochemistry

The main focus within the interdisciplinary field of bionanotechnology (/Nanomedicine) is in the development of nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery and diagnostic in vivo imaging. We have observed that articles about nanoparticles have a tendency to reflect either a lack of knowledge in cell biology or the more applied aspects. Our research aims at gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of endocytosis and intracellular transport of nanoparticles. This is important for successful development of therapeutic strategies based on nanoparticles as delivery vectors. Furthermore, the use of nanoparticles has also provided us with a new tool to obtain insight into cell biological questions of basic character. The extent to which nanoparticles are able to distort the normal intracellular trafficking was addressed in three different cell lines by measuring the uptake and intracellular transport of quantum dot (QD) nanoparticles coupled to three different proteins that bind to different cell receptors. The proteins studied were transferrin, the plant toxin ricin and Shiga toxin. Clearly, cellular trafficking of the ligand-coupled nanoparticles differed from the ligand itself. Importantly, uptake and endosomal accumulation of the ligand-QD nanoconjugates also perturbed the intracellular transport of ligands between endosomes and the Golgi apparatus. Thus, endocytosis of nanoparticles may have significant adverse effects on cell function. We plan to investigate whether a reduction in size and changes in composition (e.g. biodegradable polymeric or liposomal NP) and surface chemistry will give particles with less cellular side-effects and a low extent of cellular retention.

Links:

Tore-Geir Iversen's publications

Department of Biochemistry

Institute seminars spring season 2011