Abstract
Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) are widely used materials for biomedical applications owing to their intriguing chemical, biological and magnetic properties. The evolution of MNP based biomedical applications (such as hyperthermia treatment and drug delivery) could be advanced using magnetic nanofluids (MNFs) designed with a biocompatible surface coating strategy. This study presents the first report on the drug loading/release capability of MNF formulated with methoxy polyethylene glycol (referred to as PEG) coated MNP in aqueous (phosphate buffer) fluid. We have selected MNPs (NiFe2O4, CoFe2O4 and Fe3O4) coated with PEG for MNF formulation and evaluated the loading/release efficacy of doxorubicin (DOX), an anticancer drug. We have presented in detail the drug loading capacity and the time-dependent cumulative drug release of DOX from PEG-coated MNPs based MNFs. Specifically, we have selected three different MNPs (NiFe2O4, CoFe2O4 and Fe3O4) coated with PEG for the MNFs and compared their variance in the loading/release efficacy of DOX, through experimental results fitting into mathematical models. DOX loading takes the order in the MNFs as CoFe2O4 > NiFe2O4 > Fe3O4. Various drug release models were suggested and evaluated for the individual MNP based NFs. While the non-Fickian diffusion (anomalous) model fits for DOX release from PEG coated CoFe2O4, PEG coated NiFe2O4 NF follows zero-order kinetics with a slow drug release rate of 1.33% of DOX per minute. On the other hand, PEG coated NiFe2O4 follows zero-order DOX release. Besides, several thermophysical properties and magnetic susceptibility of the MNFs of different concentrations have been studied by dispersing the MNPs (NiFe2O4, CoFe2O4 and Fe3O4) in the base fluid at 300 K under ultrasonication. This report on the DOX loading/release capability of MNF will set a new paradigm in view that MNF can resolve problems related to the self-heating of drug carriers during mild laser treatment with its thermal conducting properties.
Highlights
In recent times, there has been a gradual increase of interest in developing newer nano-systems for diverse biomedical applications such as photoablation therapy, biosensors, hyperthermia, bio-imaging and targeted drug delivery [1]
While iron oxides are the most prevalently used magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), alloys such as Fe-Co, Fe-Ni, as well as metal ferrates such as CoFe2 O4 and MnFe2 O4 NPs are being explored for use in biomedical applications as conceivable substitutes to iron oxide NPs [3]
Our preliminary results demonstrated that the coating of polyethylene glycol (PEG) with a time lesser than 72 h resulted in less drug loading
Summary
There has been a gradual increase of interest in developing newer nano-systems for diverse biomedical applications such as photoablation therapy, biosensors, hyperthermia, bio-imaging and targeted drug delivery [1]. Magnetic metal oxide-based nanoparticles (typically iron oxide) are unique due to their exceptional chemical, biological, catalytical and magnetic properties along with chemical stability, non-toxicity, biocompatibility, elevated saturation magnetization and appropriate magnetic susceptibility [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16] These properties form the basis for their biomedical applications [17,18,19,20,21,22,23]. The superparamagnetic NPs exhibits magnetic properties in the presence of an external magnet but revert into a non-magnetic state upon removing the magnetic field This behavior of superparamagnetic materials is important for drug delivery therapeutics usage onto specific sites. CoFe2 O4 is the most suitable candidate for biomedical applications, as it has excellent physical and chemical stability, tunable coercivity, saturation magnetization, large anisotropy property and interesting inverse spinel cobalt ferrite structure [41].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
