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DNA Damage and Apoptosis Induction in Cancer Cells by Chemically Engineered Thiolated Riboflavin Gold Nanoassembly.

Abhishek SauSulagna SanyalKallol BeraSabyasachi SenAmrit Krishna MitraSubham DasguptaPrabal Kumar ChakrabortySayantan GangulyBiswarup SatpatiChandrima DasSamita Basu
Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces (2018)
Herein we have engineered a smart nuclear targeting thiol-modified riboflavin-gold nano assembly, RfS@AuNPs, which accumulates selectively in the nucleus without any nuclear-targeting peptides (NLS/RGD) and shows photophysically in vitro DNA intercalation. A theoretical model using Molecular Dynamics has been developed to probe the mechanism of formation and stability as well as dynamics of the RfS@AuNPs in aqueous solution and within the DNA microenvironment. The RfS@AuNPs facilitate the binucleated cell formation that is reflected in the significant increase of DNA damage marker, γ-H2AX as well as the arrest of most of the HeLa cells at the pre-G1 phase indicating cell death. Moreover, a significant upregulation of apoptotic markers confirms that the cell death occurs through the apoptotic pathway. Analyses of the microarray gene expression of RfS@AuNPs treated HeLa cells show significant alterations in vital biological processes necessary for cell survival. Taken together, our study reports a unique nuclear targeting mechanism through targeting the riboflavin receptors, which are upregulated in cancer cells and induce apoptosis in the targeted cells.
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