Recently, functional therapies targeting a specific organ without affecting normal tissues have been designed. The use of magnetic force to reach this goal is studied in this work. Previously, we demonstrated that nanocarriers based on magnetic nanoparticles could be directed and retained in the lungs, with their gene expression under the control of a promoter activated by a magnetic field. Magnetic nanoparticles containing the TRAIL gene and chitosan were constructed using the ionic gelation method as a nanosystem for magnetofection and were characterized by microscopy, ζ-potential, and retention analysis. Magnetofection in the mouse melanoma cell line B16F10 in vitro induced TRAIL-protein expression and was associated with morphological changes indicative of apoptosis. Systemic administration of the nanosystem in the tail vein of mice with melanoma B16F10 at the lungs produced a very significant increase in apoptosis in tumoral cells that correlated with the number of melanoma tumor foci observed in the lungs. The high levels of apoptosis detected in the lungs were partially related to mouse survival. The data presented demonstrate that the magnetofection nanosystem described here efficiently induces apoptosis and growth inhibition of melanoma B16F10 in the lungs. This new approach for systemic delivery and activation of a gene based in a nanocomplex offers a potential application in magnetic gene delivery for cancer.
Keywords: TRAIL; apoptosis; chitosan; magnetic nanoparticles; magnetofection.