Guest Editors: Vladimir Mulens-Arias (National Center for Biotechnology, Spain), Stefaan Soenen (KU Leuven, Belgium).
J Nanobiotechnology presents a collection on Inorganic nanoparticles and cellular mechanobiology: from nanotoxicology to cytoskeleton-targeting nanotheranostics
The ever-growing research on nanoparticle use in biomedical applications poses concerns on how nanoparticles interact with cells beyond their intended theranostic purposes. Particularly, researchers have been focusing on how nanoparticles affect the cytoskeleton dynamic in the last decade. Such interest arises from the need to understand and elucidate the biophysical and biochemical forces underlying the interaction of nanoparticles with the filaments composing the cell cytoskeleton and the adhesive structures. Noteworthy, adhesions (filipodia, focal adhesions, podosomes, invadopodia) connect the intracellular cytoskeleton network with the extracellular matrix (ECM) through mechanosensitive and biochemical signaling and mediates cellular sensing of ECM and cell migration/invasion. Since cytoskeleton and adhesome dynamics are integral to cell migration and invasion, and, thus, to physiological (e.g., angiogenesis, immune response, embryogenesis) and pathological processes (e.g., cancer development and metastasis, toxicology, and injured tissue repair), it is only logical to hypothesize that should nanoparticles interfere with the former, it would have consequences for the latter. Therefore, this special issue aims at promoting and outlining the current knowledge on nanoparticle´s effect on cytoskeleton and adhesome dynamics, and how it affects the underlying biological processes such as embryogenesis, immune response, angiogenesis, tissue repair, cancer, and metastasis.
The potential subjects concern, but are not limited to:
- Biophysical and biochemical study of the interaction of non-targeted nanoparticles and cytoskeleton in a cell-free and a cellular system
- Biophysical study of mechanical forces in nanoparticle-treated cells
- Non-targeted nanoparticle interference with the cytoskeleton and adhesion dynamics and its consequences for cell migration/invasion within the context of different physiological and pathological scenario (cancer, metastasis, angiogenesis, embryogenesis, cell therapy)
- Nanoparticle interaction with cytoskeleton and biocompatibility
- Use of nanoparticles for targeting of cytoskeleton components for theranostic purposes
This collection is now closed to new submissions.
