Development of multifunctional hyaluronan-coated nanoparticles for imaging and drug delivery to cancer cells

Currently, there is high interest in developing multifunctional theranostic platforms for cancer monitoring and chemotherapy. Herein, we report hyaluronan (HA)-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (HA-SPION) as a promising system for targeted imaging and drug delivery. When incubated with cancer cells, HA-SPIONs were rapidly taken up and the internalization of HA-SPION by cancer cells was much higher than the NPs without HA coating. The high magnetic relaxivity of HA-SPION coupled with enhanced uptake enabled magnetic resonance imaging of cancer cells. Furthermore, doxorubicin (DOX) was attached onto the nanoparticles through an acid responsive linker. While HA-SPION was not toxic to cells, DOX-HA-SPION was much more potent than free DOX to kill not only drug-sensitive but also multi-drug-resistant cancer cells. This was attributed to differential uptake mechanisms and cellular distributions of free DOX and DOX-HA-SPION in cancer cells.