Magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) show unique properties important for nanomedicine such as small size, nontoxicity, wide chemical affinity, and intrinsic superparamagnetism. These properties make them attractive nanomaterials for application in magnetic resonance imaging, targeted drug delivery, and hyperthermia-based cancer therapy. Moreover, their functionalization with biopolymers can improve their biocompatibility, biodegradability, and bioadhesivity. Numerous types of MNPs for medical applications have been synthesized, but only a few of them have been introduced on the market. One of the reasons behind this is the limited knowledge of the effect of MNPs on biological cells. Native biological membranes are dynamic and complex systems, which hinders understanding of interactions between nanomaterials and components of these membranes through studies based on cell lines. Such a kind of research also provides information only on the collective response of whole cells. Hence, complementary methods based on simplified models of cell membranes and delivering information about the influence of nanomaterials at the molecular level have attracted a great deal of attention. A useful tool for studying the interaction between nanomaterials and phospholipids in model cell membranes is a Langmuir technique. A single Langmuir monolayer made of phospholipids at the air-water interface constitutes a simplified model of a native cell membrane consisting of two weakly coupled phospholipid monolayers with embedded peptides, cholesterol, sugars, etc. The presented research demonstrates the use of the Langmuir method to study the effect of MNPs functionalized with different biopolymers on the stability, phase state, viscoelastic properties, and morphology of the model cell membranes.
Presenter:
Emilia Piosik has been a research assistant of a professor at the Poznan University of Technology (Poland) since 2018. She defended in 2019 her PhD thesis focused on organic ultrathin layers for application in optoelectronic made of photoisomerizing compounds and fluorescent dyes using Langmuir, Langmuir-Blodgett, and spin-coting methods. Her current research are devoted to magnetite nanoparticles with application potential in medicine and their effect on model cell membranes formed with a Langmuir technique.
