Characterization of iron oxide nanoparticles for production of breast adenocarcinoma spheroids

The construction of an in vitro model that can accurately demonstrate the conditions found in vivo requires the production of a series of complexities that often transcend various areas of knowledge. In this context, the present study employed three-dimensional culture by magnetic aggregation to build a model that minimally satisfactorily represented conditions for studying cellular behaviors present in the tumor environment related to cell death and duplication. Thus, functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles were used for culturing tumor spheroids containing breast adenocarcinoma cell line (MCF7) and human fibroblast (HF002-J) within their structure. The spheroids were divided into concentration categories for each cell line, and after a screening process, the concentrations with greater stability were irradiated or received doses of a drug with known antitumor activity for treatment. The models were studied through X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), cytotoxicity assays, and fluorescence microscopy.  The obtained results proved to be a viable alternative for the analysis of cell viability, cytotoxicity, and the morphology of tumor spheroids.