Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

Magnetic nanoparticles-mediated hyperthermia was widely studied in the last decades as applicable in cancer therapy. The majority of magnetic hyperthermia research was devoted to improvement of heating efficiency by application of various nanomaterials. The influence of biocompatibility, magnetic properties, sizes, composition, and concentration of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) on hyperthermia efficiency was extensively studied. Also, the limits preserving biological safety and the chemical stability of MNPs delivered to the tissue were established. However, much less research concerned the impact of the physical interactions between the closest MNPs on the hyperthermia efficiency. Our goal was to demonstrate the relationships between the internal structure of soft tissue containing MNPs, and the thermal effects of an alternating magnetic field. Because agarose-based gel exhibits a tissue-like internal structure, we performed hyperthermia experiments in two types of such gel containing bare and polyethylene glycol-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles. We described the structural difference and we estimated the ferrogels specific absorption rate coefficients (SAR) from calorimetric experiments. Magnetic measurements showed 11% lower magnetic saturation of PEG-coated MNPs than of the bare MNPs. While the SAR of ferrogel with PEG-coated MNPs was 15% greater than bare MNPs. The structural characteristics calculated from TEM and SEM images were significantly different. Particularly, we observed the nanoparticle agglomeration in the gel with bare MNPs. The bare MNPs uniformly packed and located inside agarose double helices were observed for the first time. The distribution of MNPs and their spatial configuration in gel influenced strongly the strength of bonds blocking the movement of MNPs and determined the ferrogels heating efficiency. As the tissues to which we delivered MNPs were composed of agarose gel-like structures, our results may be useful in further research on hyperthermia in vivo. 10.1016/j.jmmm.2021.169000, 10.1016/j.jmmm.2022.169423

nanoparticle-mediated magnetic hyperthermia, ferrogel, nanoparticles distribution, double helices structure