The article “Biosafety evaluation of etoposide lipid nanomedicines in C. elegans” has been published in Drug Delivery and Translational Research journal.

In this project, NN group members Amanda Muñoz and Anna Laromaine have collaborated with the group of María J. Blanco-Prieto (Universidad de Navarra and IdiSNA) for the evaluation of lipid nanoparticles with encapsulated Etoposide. They first evaluated the toxicity of empty and loaded nanoparticles in cancerous and healthy cell lines in vitro. The results demonstrated that etoposide nanomedicines exhibited high toxicity and selectively induced apoptosis only in cancerous cells. Next, the biosafety of these nanomedicines  was evaluated in C. elegans by measuring survival, body size, and the effect on dividing cells. The findings showed that the nanomedicines had a safer profile than the free etoposide in this model. Notably, nanomedicines exerted etoposide’s antiproliferative effect only in highly proliferative germline cells. Therefore, the developed nanomedicines hold promise as safe drug delivery systems for etoposide, potentially leading to an improved therapeutic index for neuroblastoma treatment.