Among many different types of fabricated nanoparticles, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MNPs) have unique physical and chemical properties and have been widely used due to theirs enhanced permeability and retention effect for biomedical applications. The incorporated theranostic MNPs into biopolymer coatings are currently particular interest to investigators in the fields of nanobiomedicine because of efficiently delivering of various drugs, genes and providing imaging properties. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most prevalent reason of cancer-related deaths, makes it one of the worst malignant tumors in the world. Because, there is a lack of effective treatment methods for HCC, aforementioned magnetic carrier technology with recent innovations could be a promising tool in HCC diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, this study proposes a novel fatty-acid-based polymeric magnetic nanoprobe for diagnosis of hepatocellular tumors using polyethylene glycol (PEG)-terminated polystyrene (PS)-linoleic copolymer coated magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. MNPs were synthesized by a co-precipitation method and were subsequently coated with a copolymer containing PEG group as termini. Fifty-nanometer-sized MNPs were incorporated into the core of PLinaS-g-PEG nanoparticles. The morphology and size distribution of the bare and magnetic PLinaS-g-PEG were determined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS), respectively. MTT and flow cytometry assays showed that PLinaS-g-PEG MNPs demonstrated ultrasentive apoptotic behavior against cancerous cell line, i.e. HepG2 in the culture plate when the fatty acid-containing polymer coated MNPs showed no adverse effect on L929 cell growth. The localization, and accumulation in hepatocytes of PLinaS-g-PEG MNPs without specific targeting ligand was confirmed by fluorescence and confocal microscopy. Therefore, PLinaS-g-PEG MNPs may be potentially used as a unique candidate for diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinomas.

在许多不同类型的制造纳米粒子中，磁性氧化铁纳米粒子 (MNP) 具有独特的物理和化学性质，并因其增强的渗透性和生物医学应用的保留效果而被广泛使用。目前，纳米生物医学领域的研究人员对将治疗诊断 MNP 引入生物聚合物涂层特别感兴趣，因为它可以有效地传递各种药物、基因并提供成像特性。肝细胞癌（HCC）是癌症相关死亡的最常见原因，使其成为世界上最严重的恶性肿瘤之一。由于目前缺乏有效的 HCC 治疗方法，上述磁载体技术的最新创新可能是 HCC 诊断和治疗的一种很有前景的工具。所以，本研究提出了一种新型的基于脂肪酸的聚合物磁性纳米探针，用于使用聚乙二醇 (PEG) 封端的聚苯乙烯 (PS)-亚油酸共聚物涂覆的磁性氧化铁纳米粒子来诊断肝细胞肿瘤。MNPs 是通过共沉淀法合成的，然后用含有 PEG 基团作为末端的共聚物包被。50 纳米大小的 MNP 被纳入 PLinaS-g-PEG 纳米粒子的核心。分别通过透射电子显微镜 (TEM) 和动态光散射 (DLS) 测定裸露和磁性 PLinaS-g-PEG 的形态和尺寸分布。MTT 和流式细胞术分析表明 PLinaS-g-PEG MNPs 表现出针对癌细胞系的超敏感凋亡行为，即 当含脂肪酸聚合物包被的 MNPs 对 L929 细胞生长没有不利影响时，培养板中的 HepG2。没有特定靶向配体的 PLinaS-g-PEG MNP 在肝细胞中的定位和积累通过荧光和共聚焦显微镜得到证实。因此，PLinaS-g-PEG MNPs 可能被用作诊断肝细胞癌的独特候选物。