D, L-Sulforaphane Loaded Fe3O4@ Gold Core Shell Nanoparticles: A Potential Sulforaphane Delivery System.

Hamidreza Kheiri Manjili,Hossein Naderi-Manesh,Sharareh Tavaddod,Leila Ma'Mani,Maedeh Mashhadikhan,Abbas Shafiee,Pedro V Baptista

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151344

Abstract

A novel design of gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles was fabricated as a potential delivery system to improve the efficiency and stability of d, l-sulforaphane as an anticancer drug. To this purpose, the surface of gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles was modified for sulforaphane delivery via furnishing its surface with thiolated polyethylene glycol-folic acid and thiolated polyethylene glycol-FITC. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by different techniques such as FTIR, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy. The average diameters of the synthesized nanoparticles before and after sulforaphane loading were obtained ∼ 33 nm and ∼ 38 nm, respectively, when ∼ 2.8 mmol/g of sulforaphane was loaded. The result of cell viability assay which was confirmed by apoptosis assay on the human breast cancer cells (MCF-7 line) as a model of in vitro-cancerous cells, proved that the bare nanoparticles showed little inherent cytotoxicity, whereas the sulforaphane-loaded nanoparticles were cytotoxic. The expression rate of the anti-apoptotic genes (bcl-2 and bcl-xL), and the pro-apoptotic genes (bax and bak) were quantified, and it was found that the expression rate of bcl-2 and bcl-xL genes significantly were decreased when MCF-7 cells were incubated by sulforaphane-loaded nanoparticles. The sulforaphane-loaded into the designed gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles, acceptably induced apoptosis in MCF-7 cells.

Highlights

Many studies confirmed that sulforaphane (SF) which was found in broccoli, cauliflower, kale and other cruciferous vegetables, and chemically was named 1-isothiocyanato-4-(methylsulfinyl)-butane, acts as an efficient incidence reducer in various types of tumors [1,2,3]
The gold coated Fe3O4 NPs including [Fe3O4@Au], FITC/FA@[Fe3O4@Au] NPs, and SFloaded FITC/FA@[Fe3O4@Au] NPs were prepared as shown in Fig 1A. [Fe3O4@Au] NPs were synthesized via co-precipitation of ferrous (Fe2+) and ferric (Fe3+) ions followed by coating resulting Fe3O4@ NPs with gold NPs
The particle size distribution function confirmed that the size of NPs was 37±2.1 nm, which indicates a small heterogeneity in the size of the particles

Summary

Introduction

Many studies confirmed that sulforaphane (SF) which was found in broccoli, cauliflower, kale and other cruciferous vegetables, and chemically was named 1-isothiocyanato-4-(methylsulfinyl)-butane, acts as an efficient incidence reducer in various types of tumors [1,2,3]. One type of nanoparticle is the magnetic NP which has various biomedical applications such as magnetic separator, magnetic-resonance-imaging contrast agent, and targeted drug deliver for cancer therapy [18,19,20,21,22,23,24]. In order to keep the stability of magnetic iron oxide NPs, it is important to develop protection strategies. These strategies comprise grafting or coating with polymers, biomolecules, organic molecules (small organic molecules or surfactants), or coating with an inorganic layer, such as silica, hydroxyapatite, metal, nonmetal elementary substance, metal oxide, or metal sulfide. Fe3O4@Au would be a good candidate as a drug delivery carrier

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Conclusion