Ricerc@Sapienza

Poly-lactic-co-glycolic acid nanoparticles (PLGA-NPs) were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for drug delivery in cancer. The enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect drives their accumulation minimizing the side effects of chemotherapeutics. Our aim was to develop a new theranostic tool for cancer diagnosis and therapy based on PLGA-NPs and to evaluate the added value of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) for enhanced tumor targeting. In vitro and in vivo properties of PLGA-NPs were tested and compared with VEGF-PLGA-NPs.

The chemical treatment called “chemotherapy of plants” consists in the in vivo administration of substances able to interfere with viral replication. The current availability of synthetic molecules with a high chemotherapeutic index, i.e. with a high ratio between the maximum concentration tolerated and the minimum effective, together with the possibility to further widen the therapeutic window by the use of appropriate nanocarriers, seems to open on the application level of a novel chemical approach to treat plant viral infections.

The application of nanotechnology in medicine has opened new perspectives for the management of different kinds of pathological conditions, including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases indeed, thanks to their unique size-dependent properties (e.g. large surface to volume ratios) and tailor-made physicochemical properties, nanomaterials may improve the precision and accuracy of diagnosis as well as can significantly improve the therapy by drug targeting and reduction of drug side effects.

In the last years, many studies on absorption and cell uptake of nanoparticles by plants have been conducted, but the understanding of the internalization mechanisms is still largely unknown.