Shape Matters: Drug-free Glioblastoma Targeting with Magnetic Microparticles

Abstract Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly aggressive brain tumor with limited treatment options and poor survival rates. In this study, we investigate the potential of peanut-shaped and sphere-shaped microparticles as microrobots for targeted GBM therapy, specifically using the U87 GBM cell line as a model. Our findings demonstrate that both peanut and sphere-shaped microparticles effectively decrease U87 cell viability in a dose-dependent manner (61–77% viability with peanuts and 81-27% viability with spheres between 12.5 and 400 μg/ml dosage), while also significantly reducing cell proliferation. We also compare our results with GBM cells to HMC3 cells as a control. This study highlights the therapeutic potential of these microparticle microrobots in reducing key hallmarks of GBM progression and opens up new possibilities for their application in precision cancer therapies using novel microrobot-based strategies.