Synthesis of Surface Grafted Mesoporous Magnetic Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy

A comparative study has been done on the drug loading efficacy of different surface functionalized Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) and their effect toward ovarian cancer cell line (HeLa) in vitro. The surface coating was done with carboxyl group enriched organic ligands such as succinic acid, L-arginine, oxalic acid, citric acid and glutamic acid. A maximum of similar to 62 wt.% drug has been loaded in oxalic acid coated MNP whereas least (similar to 35 wt.%) in arginine coated MNP due to variation in the chemistry of surface active agents. The cytotoxicity of functionalized MNP and doxorubicin loaded MNP were studied. The functionalized MNP are quite biocompatible whereas they show cytotoxic effect in HeLa cells e.g., around 35% cell death when treated with oxalic acid coated MNP at a concentration of similar to 100 mu g/ml. The cell death was triggered in drug loaded particle and almost complete cell death i.e., >90% was observed in oxalic acid coated MNP followed by similar to 80% and similar to 70% death in arginine and succinic acid coated MNP, respectively.