Non-covalent functionalization of CNTs with Chitosan for drug delivery system

Abstract

Nanotechnology of drug delivery is a new topic aimed at delivering medications to the desired places, such as tumor tissues, while reducing the chemotherapeutic drug adverse effects on adjacent tissues. A new form of nanomaterial has been discovered, which expands the possibilities for drug delivery systems. The carbon nanotube (CNT) is a novel type of synthetic material that has shown great potential for targeted delivery of anti-cancer drug agents. The initial problem for biomedical applications of CNT has been its hydrophobicity. A major stage in the biomedical application of CNT is proper surface modification or CNT functionalization, in order to prepare well-dispersed and biocompatible CNT in biological fluids.The goul of this study is to noncovalently functionalize of multi-walled carbon nanotubes conjugated with chitosan in various concentrations for the delivery of the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel (PTX) to breast cancer cell line. After that, characterize and investigate in vitro cell cytotoxicity of f-CNTs with and without Paclitaxel (PTX). The chitosan conjugate was synthesized and the conjugation was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The average diameter of MWCNT is 42.27 nm and the MWCNT/CHI is 48.48 nm. MWCNT exhibit stability in polymeric system (CHI) based formulation in terms of greater ζ-potential values with f-CNTs, higher entrapment efficiency was achieved with a maximum efficiency of 200 μg/ml.MDA-MB-231 cell line was exploited for cytotoxicity evaluations. MWCNT and MWCNT/CHI in different concentrations demonstrated insignificant cytotoxic effects on MDA-MB-231cell line. Nevertheless, at lower Paclitaxel concentration (100μg/ml), fMWCNTs with PTX demonstrated a considerable reduction in cell viability.