High‐Z Nanostructured Ceramics in Radiotherapy: First Evidence of Ta2O5‐Induced Dose Enhancement on Radioresistant Cancer Cells in an MV Photon Field

This article pioneers a study into the use of the tantalum pentoxide nanoceramics as novel candidates for dose enhancement radiotherapy. It is revealed that a significant induced dose enhancement on radioresistant cancer cells expose to tantalum pentoxide nanoparticles and irradiated with 10 MV. In this study, in vitro experiments are performed. The radiobiological endpoint is clonogenic survival. We exposed 9L gliosarcoma cells to the nanoparticles at 50–500 μg mL^?1 range and observed concentration‐dependent toxicity. Irradiation of the exposed and unexposed cells with 10 MV X‐ray photons reveals a sensitization enhancement ratio of 1.33. The associated cell survival curves demonstrate a significant change in shape, indicative of increased lethality of the local radiation environment. We postulate that this enhancement is primarily due to secondary electrons produced from photoelectric interaction and pair production, with backscattering on nanoparticle aggregates leading to increased radiobiological effectiveness.     

Hydration dependent studies of highly aligned multilayer lipid membranes by neutron scattering

We investigated molecular motions on a picosecond timescale of 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC) model membranes as a function of hydration by using elastic and quasielastic neutron scattering. Two different hydrations corresponding to approximately nine and twelve water molecules per lipid were studied, the latter being the fully hydrated state. In our study, we focused on head group motions by using chain deuterated lipids. Information on in-plane and out-of-plane motions could be extracted by using solid supported DMPC multilayers. Our studies confirm and complete former investigations by Ko?nig et al. [J. Phys. II (France) 2, 1589 (1992)] and Rheinsta?dter et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 248106 (2008)] who described the dynamics of lipid membranes, but did not explore the influence of hydration on the head group dynamics as presented here. From the elastic data, a clear shift of the main phase transition from the P(β) ripple phase to the L(α) liquid phase was observed. Decreasing water content moves the transition temperature to higher temperatures. The quasielastic data permit a closer investigation of the different types of head group motion of the two samples. Two different models are needed to fit the elastic incoherent structure factor and corresponding radii were calculated. The presented data show the strong influence hydration has on the head group mobility of DMPC.