Metastasis is a major problem for cancer patients as it is responsible for the death of most cancer patients. Although it has been reported that gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) can inhibit cancer cell migration, the detailed mechanism of this remains largely unknown. A better understanding of this mechanism could lead to a better design of the AuNPs for enhancing the inhibition effect. Since nuclear stiffness of the cell largely decreases cancer cell migration, our hypothesis is that targeting nanoparticles to the cell nucleus region could enhance nuclear stiffness, and therefore can inhibit cell migration. Our results show that upon nuclear targeting nanoparticle treatment, the ovarian cancer cell motilities decrease. We have also observed that nuclear stiffness of the cell was enhanced. In order to understand the mechanism, firstly, the exact location of the nanoparticles has been clearly imaged, indicating the nanoparticles were trapped on the nuclear membrane. Meanwhile, we observed that Lamin A/C protein expression was increased, which is a protein located in the inner nuclear membrane that plays a key role in nuclear stiffness which leads to slowing down the cell. We propose that the nanoparticles that are trapped at the nuclear membrane could possibly: 1) add to the mechanical stiffness of the nucleus, and, 2) stimulate the overexpression of Lamin A/C known to lead to nuclear stiffness and thus slows down cancer cell migration.

On the mechanism of slowing down cancer cell migration in the gold nanoparticles treatment

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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