Application of magnetosomes in magnetic hyperthermia

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of magnetosomes, naturally occurring magnetic nanoparticles, for magnetic hyperthermia cancer treatment by modeling their heating efficiency based on particle arrangement and magnetic interactions.

Contribution

It presents a computational analysis of how chain structure and particle spacing influence the heating efficiency of magnetosomes in magnetic hyperthermia.

Findings

Maximum specific absorption rate occurs at an optimal inter-particle distance.

Chain length has little effect on heating efficiency.

Dense chain assemblies reduce heating effectiveness due to magneto-dipole interactions.

Abstract

Magnetosomes, i.e. nanoparticles synthesized in nature by magnetotactic bacteria, are very promising for use in magnetic hyperthermia for the cancer treatment. Using the solution of the stochastic Landau-Lifshitz equation we calculate the specific absorption rate in an alternating magnetic field of assemblies of magnetosome chains depending on the particle size, the distance between particles in a chain, and the angle of the applied magnetic field with respect to the chain axis. The dependence of specific absorption rate on the distance between the chain particles is shown to have a bell-shaped form with a pronounced maximum. The maximum specific absorption rate only weakly depends on the diameter of the nanoparticles and the length of the chain. However, a significant decrease in specific absorption rate occurs in a dense chain assembly due to the strong magneto-dipole interaction of nanoparticles of different chains.