Abstract
Graphene, a two-dimensional nanomaterial, has become a hot spot of research at the interface of nanotechnology and biomedicine. In this study, the oxidized form of graphene, graphene oxide (GO), was functionalized with 6-armed polyethylene glycol (PEG), which rendered it stable and biocompatible in physiological solution. The successful synthesis of PEGylated graphene oxide (GO-PEG) nanocarrier with low toxicity was confirmed by UV-Vis spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. By dynamic light scattering (DLS), the size distribution of the nanoparticles were shown to be 60-200 nm. Furthermore, a complex by loading an aromatic anticancer compound, podophyllotoxin (PPT), onto GO-PEG (GO-PEG/PPT) via π-π stacking and hydrophobic interactions was investigated. It was demonstrated that GO-PEG/PPT showed remarkably high cytotoxicity compared to free PPT in both the human cervical adenocarcinoma HeLa cell line and human hepatoma SMMC-7721 cell line. The loading and delivery of anticancer drugs using this kind of graphene-based nanocarrier may find potential application in biomedicine.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2530 |
| Journal | Journal of Nanoparticle Research |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgments This work was sponsored by Grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31100549 and 21204098), the Shanghai Nano-Technology Program (11nm0501100), the Scientific Research Foundation for the
Funding Information:
Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2232014A3-03 and 222201313010), the National Special Fund for State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering (2060204).
Keywords
- Cytotoxicity
- Drug delivery
- Graphene oxide
- Nanomaterial
- Podophyllotoxin