Peanut Shaped Microrobots for Anticancer Therapy

Iron nanoparticles have been used in cancer research for their anticancer activity. The mechanism of action for this activity tends to be ferroptosis. Inspired by this we made hematite based peanut shaped microrobots and demonstrated their anticancer activity. We examined how peanut-shaped microrobots impacted HT1080 cancer cell lines, aiming to understand the mechanism behind cell death. Surprisingly, we discovered that unlike iron particles, these specific microrobots did not trigger ferroptosis. Additionally, when we tried to understand the mechanism behind the cell death by using ferroptosis inhibitors, they did not rescue the cells from death as expected. These results suggest that the cytotoxic effects of peanut-shaped microrobots on HT1080 cells may involve alternative pathways rather than ferroptosis.