Understanding how the physicochemical properties of nanoparticles affect cell behaviour is a crucial topic that still needs to be analytically addressed, especially from a deep biological viewpoint. In this work, we investigated how the shape of polymeric vesicles differently impact the replication activity of tumor and non tumor cells. We preliminary characterised the shape-dependent impact on cell viability and uptake. We then demonstrated that tubular structures induce a significant decrease in the replication activity of tumor cells, while spherical nanoparticles do not affect cell division. We related this tubes-induced decrease of replication with a significant up regulation of the tumor suppressor genes p21 and p53 in tumor cells. On the other side, primary (non tumor) cells were completely unaffected by nanoparticles shape, both in terms of cell division and genes expression. We also found that, despite spheres, tubes trigger the intrinsic pathways of apoptosis through the activation of caspase 3/7 in tumor cells, but not in primary cells.<br/>Our results shed light on the effects of nanoparticles shape on cell behaviour, and suggest that the the replication activity of cells, as well as cell fate, can be both finely tailored by means of nanoparticles design.

Tuning cell behaviour by nanoparticles shape

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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