Drug delivery system based on magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles coated with (polyvinyl alcohol-zinc/aluminium-layered double hydroxide-sorafenib)

Abstract

The structural, physicochemical, morphological, and magnetic properties of magnetic drug nanoparticles prepared using polymer, layered double hydroxide (LDHs) and drug as the coating agent and magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MNPs) as the core were systematically studied. Firstly, a co-precipitation method was employed to synthesize the Fe3O4 nanoparticles. Then, the surface was coated with polyvinyl alcohol, Zn/Al-LDH and sorafenib (SO). XRD and FTIR studies indicate that the core has the crystal structure of the iron oxide. The TGA results supported the existence of both the core and the shell. The saturation magnetization of the as-synthesized Fe3O4 nanoparticles was found to be reduced from 80 to57 emu/g when the nanoparticles were coated with polyvinyl alcohol, Zn/Al-LDH and the drug sorafenib. HRTEM images revealed that the mean dimension of the naked Fe3O4 nanoparticles is around 30 nm. Further structural characterizations showed that the addition of the shell led to the formation of uniform particles with a particle size distribution of about 95 nm. The kinetics of drug release from the nanoparticles was found to be governed by the pseudo-second-order equation. Cell viability assays clearly showed that the magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles coated with polyvinyl alcohol-sorafenib-Zn/Al-layered double hydroxide were found to be more potent than sorafenib alone against HepG2 liver cancer cells, while displayed no cytotoxicity against 3T3 fibroblasts. These results show that the coated Fe3O4 magnetite nanoparticles are a good candidate as a drug delivery carrier to be further explored for biomedical applications.