Assessment of the antitumoral properties of nitric oxide and chemotherapeutic releasing nanoparticles in liver cancer cells

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third death cause in cancer with low survival rate and resistance to conventional chemotherapy, specially at intermediate and advanced stages. In this sense, nanomedicine has demonstrated as a promising strategy for overcoming chemoresistance and proportionate reduced side effects. Silica oxide nanoparticles (SiO2 NPs) and ZnO NPs have been reported as interesting nanoparticles for biomedical applications, due to their low toxicity and potential to carry drugs. This strategy can also be allied to the exogenous delivery of nitric oxide (NO), which is an important endogenous signaling molecule, recently reported to be an important player to overcome chemotherapeutic resistance. Thus, in this project we aim to evaluate the synergistic effect of classical chemotherapeutic drugs allied to NO-releasing SiO2 NPs and ZnO NPs, previously prepared in the current PhD project (2020/03646-2) and tyrosine kinase inhibitors against liver cancer cell lines at different stages of cell differentiation in 2D and 3D cultured cells. We also aim to investigate death mechanisms and the role of NO in the sensitization of chemotherapeutic resistant tumor cells. (AU)