Synthesis, Characterization and Toxicity Assessment of the Novel Non covalent Functionalized Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes with Glycyrrhizin, Curcumin and Rutin

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have emerged as a new group of novel multifunctional nanoparticles in biomedicine and can be classified into single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). In the present work, a simple and efficient method was introduced for non-covalent functionalization of CNTs through the incorporation of phytochemicals of Curcumin (CUR), Glycyrrhizin (GLY) and Rutin (RUT). Different functionalization of CNTs were employed and the obtained nanoparticles were characterized by TEM, EDX, size and, zeta analyzer. Furthermore cell toxicity studies were done on A549 cell line with MTT assay. The obtained results showed that non-covalent functionalization with CUR, GLY or RUT led to the stable suspension of CNTs in aqueous media comparable to the surfactant Tween 80 as the effective surfactant that revealed visually and by TEM images. Upon surface functionalization, an increase in the size and net zeta potentials, indicates surface functionalization of CNTs. Cytotoxicity data showed that functionalization with these phytochemicals can increase the IC 50 value of CNTs from 301 µg/mL to a maximum of 4088 µg/mL in RUT functionalized CNTs. Overall the data showed that CNTs can be functionalized through this feasible method and could be introduced as interesting less toxic drug delivery system.