A fibrous morphology silica-CoFe2O4 nanocarrier for anti-cancer drug delivery

Abstract Magnetic CoFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles were encapsulated with fibrous silica shells via a simple self-assembly process to fabricate a novel, bifunctional, nanocomposite of fibrous-structured silica-CoFe 2 O 4 . The nanocomposite not only exhibited fibrous spherical morphology, typical mesoporous structure, high specific surface area and narrow size distribution, but also excellent superparamagnetic features and good monodispersity. Further study demonstrated that doxorubicin hydrochloride could be easily loaded onto the CoFe 2 O 4 @FMS (fibrous morphology silica) nanoplatforms and released with pH stimuli. Additionally, MTT assay confirmed that CoFe 2 O 4 @FMS NPs have good biocompatibility. Therefore, a novel nanocarrier based on CoFe 2 O 4 @FMS is proposed, with potential application for targeted cancer therapy.