Colloidal stability and thermo-responsive properties of iron oxide nanoparticles coated with polymers: advantages of Pluronic® F68–PEG mixture

Abstract

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are recognized to be an attractive platform for developing novel drug delivery approaches and thus several types of functionalized magnetic nanocarriers based on SPIONs have been synthesized and studied. The coating of the metal oxide surface was achieved in a one-pot synthesis with biocompatible polyethylene glycol (PEG) and thermo-responsive modified Pluronic® F68. The resulting thermo-responsive magnetic nanocarriers can incorporate water insoluble drugs into their hydrophobic compartment and later release them in a temperature dependent manner. Here we report novel magnetic nanocarriers with significant improvements regarding the colloidal stability and critical temperature obtained by mixing various molar ratios of hydrophilic PEG with thermo-responsive Pluronic® F68 bearing different end group functionalities. Various methods have been employed to characterize the magnetic nanocarriers, such as photon correlation spectroscopy (DLS), atomic absorption, FT-IR spectroscopy, and surface-enhanced Raman scattering. The transition temperature that determines changes in the conformation of the block copolymer chain was studied by DLS as a function of temperature. Moreover, the drug loading properties of SPION-(F68-OMe)-(F68-FA) and SPION-PEG-F68-FA were analyzed with a hydrophobic fluorescent dye, DID oil. The behavior of the encapsulated DID into the nanocarrier shell was studied as a function of temperature via fluorescence spectroscopy. These results offer original insights into the enhanced colloidal stability and thermo-sensitive properties of the novel synthesized magnetic nanocarriers.