Fischell Department of Bioengineering Research Works
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Browsing Fischell Department of Bioengineering Research Works by Author "Agarwal, Pranay"
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Item Bioinspired One Cell Culture Isolates Highly Tumorigenic and Metastatic Cancer Stem Cells Capable of Multilineage Differentiation(Wiley, 2020-04-28) Wang, Hai; Agarwal, Pranay; Jiang, Bin; Stewart, Samantha; Liu, Xuanyou; Liang, Yutong; Hancioglu, Baris; Webb, Amy; Fisher, John P.; Liu, Zhenguo; Lu, Xiongbin; Tkaczuk, Katherine H. R.; He, XiaomingCancer stem cells (CSCs) are rare cancer cells that are postulated to be responsible for cancer relapse and metastasis. However, CSCs are difficult to isolate and poorly understood. Here, a bioinspired approach for label-free isolation and culture of CSCs, by microencapsulating one cancer cell in the nanoliter-scale hydrogel core of each prehatching embryo-like core–shell microcapsule, is reported. Only a small percentage of the individually microencapsulated cancer cells can proliferate into a cell colony. Gene and protein expression analyses indicate high stemness of the cells in the colonies. Importantly, the colony cells are capable of cross-tissue multilineage (e.g., endothelial, cardiac, neural, and osteogenic) differentiation, which is not observed for “CSCs” isolated using other contemporary approaches. Further studies demonstrate the colony cells are highly tumorigenic, metastatic, and drug resistant. These data show the colony cells obtained with the bioinspired one-cell-culture approach are truly CSCs. Significantly, multiple pathways are identified to upregulate in the CSCs and enrichment of genes related to the pathways is correlated with significantly decreased survival of breast cancer patients. Collectively, this study may provide a valuable method for isolating and culturing CSCs, to facilitate the understanding of cancer biology and etiology and the development of effective CSC-targeted cancer therapies.Item Targeted production of reactive oxygen species in mitochondria to overcome cancer drug resistance(Nature Publishing Group, 2018-02-08) Wang, Hai; Gao, Zan; Liu, Xuanyou; Agarwal, Pranay; Zhao, Shuting; Conroy, Daniel W.; Ji, Guang; Yu, Jianhua; Jaroniec, Christopher P.; Liu, Zhenguo; Lu, Xiongbin; Li, Xiaodong; He, XiaomingMultidrug resistance is a major challenge to cancer chemotherapy. The multidrug resistance phenotype is associated with the overexpression of the adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-driven transmembrane efflux pumps in cancer cells. Here, we report a lipid membrane-coated silica-carbon (LSC) hybrid nanoparticle that targets mitochondria through pyruvate, to specifically produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) in mitochondria under near-infrared (NIR) laser irradiation. The ROS can oxidize the NADH into NAD+ to reduce the amount of ATP available for the efflux pumps. The treatment with LSC nanoparticles and NIR laser irradiation also reduces the expression and increases the intracellular distribution of the efflux pumps. Consequently, multidrug-resistant cancer cells lose their multidrug resistance capability for at least 5 days, creating a therapeutic window for chemotherapy. Our in vivo data show that the drug-laden LSC nanoparticles in combination with NIR laser treatment can effectively inhibit the growth of multidrug-resistant tumors with no evident systemic toxicity.