Effect of Magnetic Nanoparticles on Improving Doxorubicin Treatment of T47D Breast Cancer Cells

Abstract

Chemotherapeutic and anticancer therapeutics face restricted usage at higher concentrations, because of potential serious side effects on healthy cells. Therefore, finding more effective delivery mechanisms may enhance the efficacy of the compounds and decrease side effects. Recently, Magnetic Nanoparticles (MNP) have been demonstrated to increase the performance of some anticancer drugs. In the current study the effect of MNPs used in tandem with an anticancer drug was studied on breast cancer cell lines with and without the effect of external magnetic field.MNP (functionalized and biocompatible Fe3O4 NPs 160 nm diameter) was coupled with Doxorubicin (DOX), a commonly used anti-breast cancer drug, and magnetically delivered to T47D breast cancer cells. Control studies were performed with the intrinsic MNP and it was observed that they are not toxic to the cells. 50% cell viability was observed with a 1 μg/ml concentration of DOX and this concentration was further used for MNP studies. The MNPs combined with DOX were magnetically delivered to the cancer cells, both as a function of time and magnetic field. Optical and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) were used to study the effect of these external parameters on the MNP penetration into the cell. From these microscopy studies. It was observed that more MNP entered the cells with increasing time and magnetic field until a saturation point was reached. Also it was observed that there was a 20% increase in cell mortality for the cells treated with DOX l MNPs. This study was then modelled with variable permeability medium and thus an optimum value of the time and magnetic field was obtained.