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Positively charged graphene/Fe3O4/polyethylenimine with enhanced drug loading and cellular uptake for magnetic resonance imaging and magnet-responsive cancer therapy

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Abstract

Enhanced cellular uptake efficiency of nanoparticles is important for their biomedical applications, including photothermal therapy (PTT) for cancer. In this study, a one-pot method was used to construct a positively charged and magnet-responsive nanocomposite comprising reduced graphene oxide anchoring iron oxide (RGI) with a polyethylenimine (PEI) modification, to improve the efficiency of cell internalization. The surface charge can be finely tuned using PEIs of different molecular weights. The obtained RGI1.8k composite (RGI modified by 1.8 kDa PEI) could load indocyanine green (ICG) at a high mass ratio of 10:3 and ablate cancer cells using low-density laser irradiation because of its positively charged surface. In addition, the hybrids of RGI1.8k and ICG could kill most cancer cells at a laser density of 0.7 W/cm2 in vitro and 0.3 W/cm2 in vivo. At the same time, cell viability could be controlled by converting the external magnetic-field direction because of the enrichment of the magnet-responsive composite in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, RGI1.8k-ICGs could be used as T2-weighted magnetic resonance and infrared thermal imaging agents. Coupled with the magnetic target effect, the imaging signal could be improved significantly. Therefore, RGI1.8k-ICGs represent a new highly efficient PTT and imaging agent with great potential for cancer treatment.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31301177, 21427811, and 91430217), and MOST China (No. 2013YQ170585). J. W. also appreciated NSF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China

    Baoji Du, Guanyu Ding, Xu Han, Dan Li, Erkang Wang & Jin Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Baoji Du

  3. Department of Radiology, the Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130041, China

    Jianhua Liu

  4. College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China

    Jin Wang

  5. Department of Chemistry and Physics State University of New York at Stony Brook, New York, NY, 11794-3400, USA

    Jin Wang

  6. State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, China

    Jianhua Liu

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  1. Baoji Du
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  2. Jianhua Liu
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  3. Guanyu Ding
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  4. Xu Han
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  5. Dan Li
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  6. Erkang Wang
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  7. Jin Wang
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Correspondence to Dan Li, Erkang Wang or Jin Wang.

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Positively charged graphene/Fe3O4/polyethylenimine with enhanced drug loading and cellular uptake for magnetic resonance imaging and magnet-responsive cancer therapy

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Du, B., Liu, J., Ding, G. et al. Positively charged graphene/Fe3O4/polyethylenimine with enhanced drug loading and cellular uptake for magnetic resonance imaging and magnet-responsive cancer therapy. Nano Res. 10, 2280–2295 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1418-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1418-x

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