Folic-Acid-Adorned PEGylated Graphene Oxide Interferes with the Cell Migration of Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cell Line, MDAMB-231 by Targeting miR-21/PTEN Axis through NFκB

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), characterized by its aggressive and highly metastatic nature, is difficult to cure by the currently available therapies. In our investigation, folic-acid-adorned PEGylated graphene oxide (FA-PEG-GO) was synthesized by modifying graphene oxide (GO) with folic acid-PEG conjugate (FA-PEG-NH2) by EDC/NHS coupling reaction. FA-PEG-GO exhibited an exceptional potential to attenuate cell migration of TNBC cell line ,MDAMB-231 as compared to GO because of the adorned folic acid moiety, which rendered better targeting. FA-PEG-GO inhibited cell migration by actin depolymerization and perturbing lamellipodia formation. The immunocytochemistry and western blot data unraveled the fact that FA-PEG-GO inhibited cell migration by targeting miR-21 by restricting the nuclear translocation of NFκB. The downregulation of miR-21 resulted in the elevation of PTEN expression which sequentially downregulated pFAK resulting in inhibition of cell migration. Moreover, upregulation of PTEN in FA...