Iron Oxide Mesoporous Magnetic Nanostructures with High Surface Area for Enhanced and Selective Drug Delivery to Metastatic Cancer Cells.

Kheireddine El-Boubbou,Abdulmohsen Alkushi,Rizwan Ali,Sulaiman Al-Humaid,O Lemine,Alshaimaa Alhallaj,Mohamed Boudjelal

doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics13040553

Abstract

This work reports the fabrication of iron oxide mesoporous magnetic nanostructures (IO-MMNs) via the nano-replication method using acid-prepared mesoporous spheres (APMS) as the rigid silica host and iron (III) nitrate as the iron precursor. The obtained nanosized mesostructures were fully characterized by SEM, TEM, DLS, FTIR, XRD, VSM, and nitrogen physisorption. IO-MMNs exhibited relatively high surface areas and large pore volumes (SBET = 70–120 m2/g and Vpore = 0.25–0.45 cm3/g), small sizes (~300 nm), good crystallinity and magnetization, and excellent biocompatibility. With their intrinsic porosities, high drug loading efficiencies (up to 70%) were achieved and the drug release rates were found to be pH-dependent. Cytotoxicity, confocal microscopy, and flow cytometry experiments against different types of cancerous cells indicated that Dox-loaded IO-MMNs reduced the viability of metastatic MCF-7 and KAIMRC-1 breast as well as HT-29 colon cancer cells, with the least uptake and toxicity towards normal primary cells (up to 4-fold enhancement). These results strongly suggest the potential use of IO-MMNs as promising agents for enhanced and effective drug delivery in cancer theranostics.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilMesoporous magnetic materials have been thoroughly investigated in a wide spectrum of industrial and research areas ranging from catalytic, photonic, and electronic devices and batteries to biological, biomedical, and drug delivery applications [1,2]
Dulbecco’s phosphate buffered saline (DPBS), phosphate buffered saline (PBS), advanced Dulbecco’s modified eagle medium (DMEM), phenol red-free DMEM, fetal bovine serum (FBS), Hoechst 33,342 stain, L-glutamine, and penicillin-streptomycin (Pen-Strep) were all purchased from Invitrogen or UFC Biotechnology
From the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images (Figure 2d–f), it is evident that the original mesoporous silica system is replicated and that the obtained constructs possess mesopores of nanoclustered iron oxide

Summary

Introduction

Mesoporous magnetic materials have been thoroughly investigated in a wide spectrum of industrial and research areas ranging from catalytic, photonic, and electronic devices and batteries to biological, biomedical, and drug delivery applications [1,2]. It is well recognized that mesoporous materials exhibit exceptional unique properties that emerge as a consequence of their small sizes, high surface areas, large pore volumes, and tunable pore structures [3]. The functionality of such materials can be significantly improved when their sizes are confined to the nanoscale and their morphologies are controlled to have a high surface area.

Methods

Results

Conclusion