Fe3O4@PEG-coated dendrimer modified graphene oxide nanocomposite as a pH-sensitive drug carrier for targeted delivery of doxorubicin

Abstract Since dendrimer-based magnetic nanoparticles have presented remarkable potential as carriers in biomedical applications, it is worthwhile to construct a dendrimer-based drug delivery system for cancer treatment. Hence, in the present study, triazine dendrimer functionalized graphene oxide (GO-DT) was successfully fabricated by the divergent method. Then, the Fe3O4@PEG nanoparticles were attached to the surface of GO-TD G2.5 (GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG) as a new magnetic nanocarrier for effective loading and the pH-responsive release of Doxorubicin (DOX). The structure and morphology of the synthesized GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG were characterized by BET, XRD, DLS/ Zeta potential, UV-vis, FT‐IR, AFM, SEM, and VSM analysis. The surface morphology indicated that the average thickness of the sheets in the synthesized nanocarrier had approximately 144.21 nm. The encapsulation efficiency (EE) and drug-loading content (DLC) of this system were obtained ∼92.6 and ∼9.26%, respectively. The in vitro release studies of DOX from GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG were performed at various pH values and found that the release process was noticeably controlled pH responsive behavior. In vitro cytotoxicity studies of the as-synthesized GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG against normal cell line (MCF-10A) and breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) confirmed that the non-toxic GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG has excellent biocompatibility. DAPI staining and apoptosis analysis by flow-cytometry demonstrated that the apoptotic effects of GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG-DOX have higher in comparison to free DOX. Cellular uptake also showed the high uptake percentage for GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG-DOX than free DOX within 4 h. Therefore, the obtained results in this work suggesting that GO-TD-Fe3O4@PEG nanocomposite is a promising nanocarrier for targeted delivery and controlled release of anticancer drugs for biomedical applications.