A pH/GSH Dual‐Responsive, Folic Acid Targeted Drug Delivery System Based on Bovine Serum Albumin Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy

Abstract

AbstractBovine serum albumin, based on its low toxicity and excellent biocompatibility, has great potential as a carrier for drug delivery systems. In this context, a pH/GSH dual‐responsive drug delivery system (ICG/DOX@Fe‐BSA‐FA nanoparticles) based on Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is constructed for tumor‐targeted multimodal therapy. In this study, doxorubicin (DOX) and indocyanine green (ICG) are co‐loaded after Fe3+ is coordinated with BSA, and the system is finally grafted with the targeted molecule Folic acid. DOX is used in chemotherapy, ICG is used in photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT), and Fe3+ mainly provided sufficient raw material for the Fenton‐like reaction. The ability of ICG/DOX@Fe‐BSA‐FA (ID@FBF) nanoparticles to combine chemotherapy with CDT/PDT/PTT is demonstrated by several physical characterization. In vitro cell uptake assay and in vitro cytotoxicity assay demonstrated the excellent ability of ID@FBF to target 4T1 cells and kill tumor cells with the IC50 value of 0.75 µg mL−1. Therefore, chemotherapy combined with CDT/PDT/PTT therapy may result in satisfactory efficacy via ID@FBF, a potentially powerful and highly effective nanosystem.