The cancer cell membrane contains an arsenal of highly specific homotypic moieties that can be used to recognize its own kind. These cell membranes are often used to coat spherical nanoparticles to enhance nanomedicines' targeting specificities and uptakes. A sphere, however, has only a point contact with a surface at any given time. It is shown here that, by retaining a flatter morphology of the cracked cell membrane through stiffening with in situ synthesized gold nanomaterials, an increased area of interaction could be maintained and hence improve upon the in vitro and in vivo homotypic targeting capabilities between cancer cell types. This enhancement is especially important in vivo as any nanomedicine with targeting moieties probably has a single pass at interacting with the target cell before subsequent system clearance. Possible future clinical applications may involve the usage of a patient's autologous tumor biopsy tissues, which are very limited in supply, and therefore ensuring that we capitalize on the entire collective surface area of the cancer cell membrane available becomes an important consideration in the design and delivery our cell membrane-derived nanomedicines.
Keywords: cell membrane; cell membrane nanotechnology; gold nanostars; homotypic cancer targeting; photothermal.