Synthesis and In Vitro Study of the Biodegradation Resistance of Magnetic Nanoparticles Designed for Studying the Viscoelasticity of Cytoplasm

An approach to the analysis of intracellular motion with nanosecond temporal resolution, based on the Mossbauer study of particles incorporated into a cell, has been developed. A possibility of applying magnetic nanoparticles as probes for studying in vitro the cytoplasm properties is analyzed. Two types of aqueous colloids of nanoparticles enriched with the 57Fe isotope are synthesized, and their cytotoxicity and biodegradation resistance under living cell conditions are investigated by an example of breast cancer cell line. It is found that the particles barely undergo any changes characteristic of biodegradation processes during their 120-h incubation in cells, although intracellular oxidation of divalent iron in the particle composition is observed. This result indicates possibility of using these particles for in vitro Mossbauer studies.