Hydroxy, carboxylic and amino acid functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization and in vitro anti-cancer studies

Abstract

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles were synthesized by simple co-precipitation method and modified with different coating agents such as ascorbic acid, hexanoic acid, salicylic acid, L-arginine and L-cysteine. The synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by various techniques such as FT IR, XRD, VSM, SEM, TEM and thermal analysis. Both bare and coated magnetites were of cubic spinel structure and spherical in shape. All the magnetite nanoparticles showed superparamagnetic behaviour with high saturated magnetization. In vitro cytotoxicity test of bare and coated nanoparticles was performed using adenocarcinoma cells, A549. Cell viability of bare and L-arginine coated magnetite nanoparticles showed IC₅₀ value of 31.2 μg/mL proving the compatibility of nanocarriers when compared to others. Hence, L-arginine coated nanoparticles were used for loading the drug paclitaxel and the observed IC₅₀ value (7.8 μg/mL) shows its potent anti-proliferative effect against A549 lung cancer cell lines. Thus, it can be speculated that the drug paclitaxel loaded L-arginine coated nanoparticles could be used as an effective drug carrier for the destruction of cancer cells.