Stable cerasomes for simultaneous drug delivery and magnetic resonance imaging

Stable cerasomes for simultaneous drug delivery and magnetic resonance imaging Zhong Cao,1,* Wenjian Zhu,1,* Wei Wang,2 Chunyang Zhang,1 Ming Xu,2 Jie Liu,1 Shi-Ting Feng,3 Qing Jiang,1 Xiaoyan Xie2 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, 2Department of Medical Ultrasonics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Institute of Diagnostic and Interventional Ultrasound, 3Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Magnetic liposomes have been frequently used as nanocarriers for targeted drug delivery and magnetic resonance imaging in recent years. Despite great potentials, their morphological/structural instability in the physiological environment still remains an intractable challenge for clinical applications. In this study, stable hybrid liposomal cerasomes (ie, liposomes partially coated with silica) which can co-encapsulate Fe3O4 nanoparticles and the anticancer drug paclitaxel were developed using thin film hydration method. Compared with the drug loaded liposomes, the paclitaxel-loaded magnetic cerasomes (PLMCs) exhibited much higher storage stability and better sustained release behavior. Cellular uptake study showed that the utilization of an external magnetic field significantly facilitated the internalization of PLMCs into cancer cells, resulting in potentiated drug efficacy of killing tumor cells. The T2 relaxivity (r2) of our PLMCs was much higher than that of free Fe3O4 nanoparticles, suggesting increased sensitivity in T2-weighted imaging. Given its excellent biocompatibility also shown in the study, such dual functional PLMC is potentially a promising nanosystem for effective cancer diagnosis and therapy. Keywords: MRI, paclitaxel, SPIO, superparamagnetic iron oxide