Visible light-activated water-soluble Platicur nanocolloids: photocytotoxicity and metabolomics studies in cancer cells

Nanoparticles-based drug delivery systems for cancer therapy offer great promising opportunity as they specifically target cancer cells, also increasing the bioavailability of anticancer drugs characterized by low water solubility. Platicur, [Pt(cur)(NH3)2](NO3), is a cis-diamine-platinum(II) complex linked to curcumin. In this work, an ultrasonication method, coupled with Layer by Layer technology, allows to obtain highly aqueous stable Platicur nanocolloids of about 100 nm. The visible light activated Platicur nanocolloids showed an increased drug release and antitumor activity on HeLa cells, with respect Platicur Nanocolloids in darkness. This occurrence could give very interesting insight for a selective activation of the nano-delivered Pt(II) complex and a possible side effects lowering. For the first time, the metabolic effects of Platicur nanocolloids photoactivation, in Hela cell line, have been investigated using a NMR based metabolomics approach coupled with statistical multivariate data analysis (MVA). The reported results highlight specific metabolic differences between photoactivated and non-photoactivated Platicur NCs treated HeLa cancer cells.