Authors
Sulagna Dutta, Saptydeep Das, Sajid Nawaz, Arghya Adhikary, Goutam Pramanik, Ujjal Das, Goutam Ghosh
Published in
Nanomedicine : nanotechnology, biology, and medicine. Pages 103040. Oct 16, 2026. Epub Oct 16, 2026.
Abstract
Disrupting intracellular ion homeostasis is an underexplored strategy in cancer therapy. We demonstrate that chloride-counterion-conjugated cationic iron oxide nanoparticles (CPC/PEG-IONPs) induce cancer cell death through a membrane-mediated mechanism. CPC/PEG-IONPs markedly reduced cancer cell-line viability while showing minimal toxicity toward non-cancerous and peripheral blood mononuclear cells. They also disrupted the size and architecture of 3D cancer spheroids, indicating impaired stemness and tumorigenic potential. Mechanistically, cancer cells expressed higher levels of chloride intracellular channel 1 (CLIC1), enabling chloride influx following electrostatic nanoparticle binding to cell membranes. Genetic upregulation of CLIC1 potentiated, whereas pharmacological inhibition attenuated, nanoparticle-induced cytotoxicity, establishing the CLIC1-chloride axis as a key mediator of cancer cell death. No detectable nanoparticle internalization indicates a predominantly membrane-driven mechanism. Overall, our findings uncover a previously unrecognized strategy in which nanoparticle-membrane electrostatic interactions exploit CLIC1-dependent chloride transport to induce programmed cancer cell death, highlighting ion homeostasis as a promising target for nanomedicine-based cancer therapy.
PMID:
42887840
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 17 Oct 2026.
Read full publication at:
Please sign in
to see all details.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 19
- Comments 0