Adjusting the Balance between Effective Loading and Vector Migration of Macrophage Vehicles to Deliver Nanoparticles

The nature of macrophage allows the possibility that this cell type could be used as drug delivery system to track therapeutic drug nanoparticles (NPs) in cancer. However, there is no existing research on the regulation between effective loading of NPs and targeted delivery of macrophages. Here, we investigated the important parameters of intracellular NP quantity and the vector migration rate. Macrophage loading capacity was obtained by comparing the uptake quantity of varisized NPs, and the delivery ability of loaded cells was determined by measuring vector migration rates. We observed a positive correlation between the size of NPs and directed macrophage migration. Our findings suggest that the molecular mechanism of migration vector rate regulation involved increased expression levels of colony-stimulating factor-1 (CSF-1) receptor and integrin induced by 100-nm and 500-nm particles. The ability of macrophages uptake to varisized NPs showed the opposite trend, with the increased vector rate of cell migration influenced by NPs. We are able to demonstrate the important balance between effective macrophage loading and targeted delivery. By adjusting the balance parameters, it will be possible to utilize NPs in macrophage-mediated disease diagnosis and therapy.