Monitoring of squalenoyl gemcitabine nanomedicines in single living breast cancer cells by Raman imaging
5 October 2023
B Fulbert1, A Al Assaad1, D Desmaele2, E Fossier1, L Van Gulick 1, F Slimano1, S Dukic1, S Mura2, H Morjani1, A Beljebbar11 – Université de Reims Champagne Ardenne, BioSpecT EA 7506, UFR de Pharmacie, 51096 Reims, France
2 – Université Paris-Saclay, UMR CNRS8612, Institut Galien Paris-Saclay, Faculté de sciences pharmaceutiques, Châtenay-Malabry, France
Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate the effect of Gemcitabine (Gem) and Gemcitabine-Squalene (GemSQ) nanoparticles (NPs) on breast cancer cell lines MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231. The in vitro antitumor activities showed that Gem was 13.5 times more effective than GemSQ NPs on MCF-7 cells, while GemSQ NPs induced a 14-fold greater cytotoxic effect than Gem on MDA-MB-231 cells. Raman spectroscopy was used to assess the effect of these drugs at a concentration of 50 µM. The accumulation of the GemSQ was higher in the cytoplasm of MDA-MB-231 than in MCF-7 cells. However, no information was obtained on Gem. We have identified Raman features of SQ allowed distribution of GemSQ for both cell lines treated with GemSQ. We then monitored the effects of Gem and GemSQ NPs on cellular constituents such as proteins, nucleic acids and cytochrome C. Our results showed differences in the subcellular accumulation of these constituents as a function of drug treatment.
Keywords:
Raman microspectroscopy, breast cancer cells, squalenoylated Gemcitabine nanoparticles, antitumor activity