An anticancer drug loading and release study to ternary GO-Fe3O4-PPy and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs nanocomposites for photothermal chemotherapy

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a new treatment method being developed against traditional cancer therapy methods. In this study, graphene oxide-iron oxide-polypyrrole (GO-Fe3O4-PPy) and iron oxide@polypyrrole-nitrogen doped graphene quantum dots (Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs) ternary nanocomposites having superior photothermal and magnetic properties were loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) anticancer drug. The loading and release of the DOX was investigated by UV–visible spectroscopy. At the end of 48 h, the cumulative release of DOX from GO-Fe3O4-PPy/DOX and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs/DOX at pH 5.5 and pH 7.4 was obtained as 99.55% ± 0.20, 48.87% ± 0.20% and 97.88% ± 0.45, 38.82% ± 0.26, respectively. After a short period of time like 4 h and 8 h, NIR-triggered release of DOX was increased significantly compared to drug release without NIR. The cytotoxic effects on the 4T1 mouse breast cancer cells of GO-Fe3O4-PPy/DOX and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs/DOX drug loaded nanocomposites were determined by MTT test. The increase of DOX release with NIR effect was demonstrated by both in-vitro cytotoxicity studies and confocal laser microscopy images. In summary, multifunctional GO-Fe3O4-PPy/DOX and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs/DOX nanocomposites have great potential for photothermal chemotherapy.