By incorporating magnetic nanoparticles into gene therapy treated cells, British researchers were able to guide them to a tumor. The effectiveness of this treatment still to be developed is significantly increased.
Claire Lewis and Munitta Muthana, researchers at the University of Sheffield, together with their colleagues, made a brilliant idea. As they explain in Gene Therapy, they injected magnetic nanoparticles into monocytes. This may be surprising, but such particles are present in some bacteria and are perfectly well tolerated by these living organisms.
Source :https://www.nature.com/articles/gt200857
Twenty years ago, gene therapy brought a lot of hope. In spite of undeniable successes, it was necessary to disillate a little and things are more complex than what biologists and doctors imagined. But what is gene therapy?
The absence or defective structure of a gene can alter the composition of the proteins produced by the cells. This defect is then at the origin of certain diseases, hereditary (cystic fibrosis, myopathy) or not (cancer). The idea of gene therapy is that it would be enough to introduce a good gene into the defective cells to correct or compensate for the abnormal production of proteins. Unlike a drug that affects the activity of proteins and cellular functions, gene therapy seeks to intervene at the source of the dysfunctions.
One way to insert a good gene into a diseased organism is to place it first in monocytes, blood cells of the leukocyte family (white blood cells) evolving into macrophages, then inject them into the bloodstream. Attempts of this kind have been made to treat certain cancers, but their effectiveness is partly based on the number of monocytes carrying the curative gene penetrating into the tumor. In general, this number is unfortunately low.
Magnetic attraction to the tumor
Claire Lewis and Munitta Muthana, researchers at the University of Sheffield, together with their colleagues, made a brilliant idea. As they explain in Gene Therapy, they injected magnetic nanoparticles into monocytes. This may be surprising, but such particles are present in some bacteria and are perfectly well tolerated by these living organisms.
After successfully inserting these nanoparticles into the monocytes, and the latter having been injected into diseased mice, the researchers then used magnetic fields to attract the treated cells to the tumors. They then realized that the amount of monocytes carrying gene therapy that had entered the tumors had increased.
Lewis thinks this new technique has great potential in gene therapy and not just for cancer. For example, she mentions problems of osteoarthritis or myocardial ischaemia leading to heart problems.
