Smart pH-responsive magnetic graphene quantum dots nanocarriers for anticancer drug delivery of curcumin

Abstract

In this study, we designed a targeted multifunctional anticancer drug carrier based on magnetic to improve the efficiency of curcumin (Cur) as a non-toxic and hydrophobic anticancer medicine. Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) were synthesized from graphene oxide (GO), and then magnetic nanocomposite was prepared with chemical co-precipitation of Fe2+ and Fe3+. As a cancer-targeting agent, folic acid (FA) was conjugated and named GQDs-Fe3O4-FA nanocomposite. FTIR, VSM, XRD, and FE-SEM analyses were used to characterize the as-synthesized nanocomposite. Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) results revealed that GQDs-Fe3O4 was synthesized, and FA was attached to it. Furthermore, according to the VSM analysis, it can be seen that GQDs-Fe3O4 has superparamagnetic behavior (Ms = 60.6 emu/g), which is shown that an applied magnetic field can steer it to the cancerous tumor site without damaging the healthy tissues. The cumulative release behavior of the drug (Cur) was monitored in phosphate buffered saline (PBS, pH 5.5 and 7.4) for 150 h. It was observed that 33% and 15% of total curcumin were released at pH 5.5 and 7.5, respectively. In vitro cytotoxicity of GQDs-Fe3O4 and Cur/GQDs-Fe3O4-FA were investigated against MCF-7 and MG-63 cells by the MTT-Assay test. According to an in vitro cytotoxicity assay, these cell lines are more vulnerable to Cur/GQDs-Fe3O4-FA than Cur/GQDs-Fe3O4, which revealed the selective role of folic acid as a targeting agent in nanocarriers. The results also showed nontoxicity of the bare nanocarrier on normal cells. Therefore, GQDs-Fe3O4-FA can be a potential and compelling candidate for therapeutic applications, including drug delivery systems.