Ferritin nanocage as a magnetic carrier

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Tezin Türü: Doktora

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Kimya Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2015

Öğrenci: TUĞBA NUR ASLAN

Danışman: MÜRVET VOLKAN

Özet:

There is a large focus on ferritin protein cages due to its biological importance, its behaviour as a useful platform for material synthesis and also providing chemical modification of the exterior surface to create functionality. In this study, iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized within the cavity of the ferritin (magnetoferritin). Non-radioactive rhenium was incorporated on the protein exterior via conjugation of histidine molecules by using glutaraldehyde crosslinker. 185Re was also bound to magnetoferritin. The rhenium was bound to histidine modified magnetoferritin surface ~ 6 fold more than those bound directly to non-modified magnetoferritin surface and it has the stability of 88% ± 1.8 after 3 days in human blood serum. The toxicity and cellular uptake experiments of prepared biomaterial were tested in MCF-10 (healthy) and MDA-MB-231 (cancerous) cell lines. The biocompatibility is still protected for apoferritin after treatment with cells for 3 days. Thus, utilizing apoferritin holds promise for cancer therapy with a reduced toxicity. The uptake of nanoparticles by the cells increased in 4 hours and cancerous cells exhibited the highest uptake than healthy cells. The effect of iron loadings on relaxivities for MRI application and peroxidase-like activity of magnetoferritin were also investigated. r2 relaxivity and peroxidase-like properties of magnetoferritin showed an increase as the iron loadings increase. The high r2 relaxivity shows that magnetoferritin may serve as T2 contrast agent with high efficiency.