Targeted drug release and in vitro anticancer activities of iron oxide@folic acid/chitosan-based nano-niosomes

Abstract

Niosomes based targeted drug delivery systems holds immense potential in revolutionizing modern cancer treatments by enabling highly accurate and targeted cancer site drug release potentials, mitigating the detrimental side effects associated with traditional chemotherapy. This research article describes the successful facile synthesis of a nano-niosomes based targeted drug delivery system using iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs), ciprofloxacin (CIF), chitosan (CS) and folic acid (FA). First, Fe3O4 NPs were biogenically synthesised by using Garcinia mangostana fruit peel extract, subsequently the Fe3O4 @FA-CS-CIF-NPs nano-niosomes were prepared by modifying Fe3O4 NPs with CIF, FA and CS. The formation of Fe3O4@FA-CS-CIF-NPs nano-niosomes were confirmed by various spectroscopic and microscopic analyses. Fe3O4 @FA-CS-CIF-NPs nano-niosomes showed ROS-responsive drug release efficacy and exhibited excellent drug releasing efficiency (93.55%) at the cancerous cell micro environment. In addition, nano-niosomes exhibited the highest cytotoxic effect on HeLa S3 cancer cells (IC50 = 4.7 μg/mL) and significant biocompatibility properties. Colony formation and cell cycle analysis showed that Fe3O4@FA-CS-CIF-NPs nano-niosomes effectively inhibited the colony formation of HeLa S3 cells and arrested their cell cycle in the S phase. These results provide a foundation for further investigation of Fe3O4@FA-CS-based nano-niosomes for cancer treatment in vivo, and open a new avenue in the development of magnetic nano-niosomes based anticancer entities.