TY - JOUR N2 - Mortality of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) has not improved over the last two decades despite medical breakthroughs in the treatment of other types of cancers. Nanoparticles hold tremendous promise to overcome the pharmacokinetic challenges and off-target adverse effects. However, an inhibitory effect of nanoparticles by themselves on metastasis has not been explored. In this study, we developed transferrin-conjugated porous silicon nanoparticles (Tf@pSiNP) and studied their effect on inhibiting GBM migration by means of a microfluidic-based migration chip. This platform, designed to mimic the tight extracellular migration tracts in brain parenchyma, allowed high-content time-resolved imaging of cell migration. Tf@pSiNP were colloidally stable, biocompatible, and their uptake into GBM cells was enhanced by receptor-mediated internalisation. The migration of Tf@pSiNP-exposed cells across the confined microchannels was suppressed, but unconfined migration was unaffected. The pSiNP-induced destabilisation of focal adhesions at the leading front may partially explain the migration inhibition. More corroborating evidence suggests that pSiNP uptake reduced the plasticity of GBM cells in reducing cell volume, an effect that proved crucial in facilitating migration across the tight confined tracts. We believe that the inhibitory effect of Tf@pSiNP on cell migration, together with the drug-delivery capability of pSiNP, could potentially offer a disruptive strategy to treat GBM. ID - discovery10146556 UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59146-5 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC SN - 2045-2322 JF - Scientific Reports A1 - Sheykhzadeh, Sana A1 - Luo, Meihua A1 - Peng, Bo A1 - White, Jacinta A1 - Abdalla, Youssef A1 - Tang, Tweety A1 - Mäkilä, Ermei A1 - Voelcker, Nicolas H A1 - Tong, Wing Yin KW - Apoptosis KW - Brain Neoplasms KW - Cell Movement KW - Cell Proliferation KW - Drug Delivery Systems KW - Extracellular Space KW - Glioblastoma KW - Humans KW - Nanoparticles KW - Porosity KW - Silicon KW - Transferrin KW - Tumor Cells KW - Cultured TI - Transferrin-targeted porous silicon nanoparticles reduce glioblastoma cell migration across tight extracellular space AV - public Y1 - 2020/02/11/ VL - 10 IS - 1 N1 - This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. ER -