Endogenously-Activated Ultrasmall-in-Nano Therapeutics: Assessment on 3D Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1063: Endogenously-Activated Ultrasmall-in-Nano Therapeutics: Assessment on 3D Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas:

Cancers, Vol. 12, Pages 1063: Endogenously-Activated Ultrasmall-in-Nano Therapeutics: Assessment on 3D Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Cancers doi: 10.3390/cancers12051063

Authors:
Melissa Santi
Ana Katrina Mapanao
Domenico Cassano
Ylea Vlamidis
Valentina Cappello
Valerio Voliani


Negative or positive HPV-associated Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas (HNSCCs) are high recurrence neoplasms usually resulting in a poor prognosis, mainly due to metastasis formation. Despite the low overall patient survival rate and the severe side effects, the treatment of choice is still cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Here, we report a straightforward protocol for the production of high throughput 3D models of negative or positive HPV-associated HNSCCs, together with their employment in the therapeutic evaluation of gold ultrasmall-in-nano architectures comprising an endogenously-activatable cisplatin prodrug. Beyond enhancing the biosafety of cisplatin, our approach paves the way for the establishment of synergistic co-therapies for HNSCCs based on excretable noble metals.