Synthesis and characterization of polyglycerol coated superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and cytotoxicity evaluation on normal human cell lines

Abstract

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) are considered as interesting nano-carriers for cancer detection and treatment. As promising reagents for biomedical applications they need surface modifications and polyglycerol has shown suitable characteristics as a coating agent in this regard. Synthesis and characterization of SPIONs and polyglycerol coated SPIONs (PG-SPIONs) as well as evaluation of cytotoxic effects on normal human cell lines (HEK293 and MCF10A) was the aim of present study. The effect of SPIONs and PG-SPIONs on these cell lines was evaluated by measuring the cell viability, apoptosis, expression of apoptosis-associated proteins and caspase-3 activity. Characteristics of nanoparticles were determined by TEM, FTIR, VSM and XRD. Mean size of SPIONs and PG-SPIONs were found to be 5.4 ± 0.75 nm and 17.9 ± 2.85 nm, respectively. XRD result demonstrates that the nanoparticles are Fe3O4 with highly crystalline particles and their surface modification by Polyglycerol (PG) and superparamagnetic behavior was confirmed by FTIR and VSM. The surface coating significantly increased cell viability, attenuated apoptosis, promoted expression of Bax and P53 and reduced Bcl2 protein expression and caspase-3 activity. In conclusion, these results indicates that surface coating of SPIONs with PG can decrease SPIONs-induced cell injury in normal human cells, suggesting PG-SPIONs as safe nanocarriers for application in medicine.