Sendai virus-based liposomes enable targeted cytosolic delivery of nanoparticles in brain tumor-derived cells

Experiments utilized the Sendai virus to achieve in vitro, cytosolic delivery of Quantum dots in cells cultured from Human brain tumors. Using fluorescence microscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy, in vitro experiments illustrated that these virus-based liposomes decreased the amount of non-specifically endocytosed nanoparticles by 50% in the Human glioblastoma and medulloblastoma samples studied. Significantly, virus-based liposome delivery also facilitated targeted binding of Quantum dots to cytosolic Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor within cultured cells, focal to the early detection and characterization of malignant brain tumors.These findings are the first to utilize the Sendai virus to achieve cytosolic, targeted intracellular binding of Qdots within Human brain tumor cells. The results are significant to the continued applicability of nanoparticles used for the molecular labeling of cancer cells to determine tumor heterogeneity, grade, and chemotherapeutic resistivity.Nanoparticles have facilitated unprecedented study of biological processes and molecular markers within a variety of cell samples (reviewed in [1-4]). Diagnostic assays where nanoparticles are used to detect the presence and/or absence of a combination of cell markers are becoming increasingly significant in the identification of progenitor or stem-like cells found within a variety of tumors [5]. While nanotechnology has pioneered major advances in cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment [6], tumors within brain continue to pose one of the lowest survival rates five years after diagnosis [7]. While such poor prognosis is largely associated with the highly invasive nature of malignant brain tumors [8-10], the cellular heterogeneity of diseased brain also plays a large role, as constituent subpopulations of neoplastic cells with stem-like properties [11] appear to be resistant to conventional radiotherapy and chemotherapeutic regimens [12]. Emerging studies have underscored the significa