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Cytotoxicity of doxrubicin loaded single-walled carbon nanotubes

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Abstract

Carbon nanotube (CNTs) is a new alternative for efficient drug delivery and it has a great potential to change drug delivery system profile in pharmaceutical industry. One of the important advantage of CNTs is their needle-like, cylindrical shape. This shape provides a high surface area for multiple connections and adsorption onto for millions of therapeutic molecules. CNTs can be internalized by cells via endocytosis, passive diffusion and phagocytosis and release the drug with different effects like pH and temperature. The acidic nature of cancer cells and the susceptibility of CNTs to release the drug in the acidic environment have made it a promising area of research in cancer drug delivery. In this research, we investigated cell viability, cytotoxicity and drug delivery in breast cancer cell line by designing non-covalent single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT)–doxorubicin (DOX) supramolecular complex that can be developed for cancer therapy. Applied high concentrations of DOX loaded SWNTs changed the actin structure of the cells and prevented the proliferation of the cells. It was showed that doxorubicin loaded SWNTs were more effective than free doxorubicin at relatively small concentrations. Once we applied same procedure for short and long (short: 1–1.3 µm; long: 2.5–4 µm) SWNTs and compared the results, more disrupted cell structure and reduction in cell proliferation were observed for long CNTs. DOX is bounded more to nanotubes in basic medium, less bound in acidic environment. Cancer cells were also examined for concentration at which they were effective by applying DOX and it was seen that 3.68 µM doxorubicin kills more than 55% of the cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, Trakya University, 22030, Edirne, Turkey

    Ayhan Ünlü

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, 34469, Istanbul, Turkey

    Mehdi Meran & F. Seniha Güner

  3. Department of Basic Sciences, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Altinbas University, 34218, Istanbul, Turkey

    Bircan Dinc

  4. Institute of Energy, Istanbul Technical University, 34469, Istanbul, Turkey

    Nilgün Karatepe

  5. Department of Biophysics, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul University, 34093, Istanbul, Turkey

    Muhammet Bektaş

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  1. Ayhan Ünlü
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  2. Mehdi Meran
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  3. Bircan Dinc
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  5. Muhammet Bektaş
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  6. F. Seniha Güner
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Correspondence to Ayhan Ünlü.

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Ayhan Ünlü, Mehdi Partovi Meran, Bircan Dinç, Nilgün Karatepe, Muhammet Bektaş, and Seniha Güner declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Ünlü, A., Meran, M., Dinc, B. et al. Cytotoxicity of doxrubicin loaded single-walled carbon nanotubes. Mol Biol Rep 45, 523–531 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-018-4189-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-018-4189-5

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