Engineered polymeric iron oxide nanoparticles as potential drug carrier for targeted delivery of docetaxel to breast cancer cells

A biocompatible nanodrug delivery formulation based on poly (D, L-lactide-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA), polyethylene glycol (PEG) and superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles has been developed and evaluated for the enhanced delivery of docetaxel (DTX) to breast cancer cells. The hydrothermally synthesized iron oxide nanoparticles (IONP) were encapsulated along with the DTX drug in a PLGA-PEG coating using a modified emulsion evaporation method. The structural, morphological and chemical characterization of the iron oxide nanoparticles was done by XRD, FE-SEM, TEM, DLS, and FTIR. The X-ray diffraction analysis showed good crystallinity of the nanoparticles. The magnetization versus field (M-H) curve revealed the superparamagnetic behavior of the synthesized IONPs at room temperature with a saturation magnetization of 71.9 emu.g(-1). The DTX loaded iron oxide nanoparticles (DIONP) showed spherical shape and uniform size distribution in the range of 160-220 nm. DIONP showed higher internalization efficiency and moderate cytotoxicity in MCF-7 cells as found from the confocal microscopy and MTT assay. Further, in vivo plasma pharmacokinetic (PK) study showed improved values of important PK parameters such as area under curve, mean residence time, the volume of distribution, etc. for DIONP as compared to pure DTX. DIONP showed nearly 12% drug loading capacity with a sustained drug release over the experimental time-period. The higher saturation magnetization, controllable size, satisfactory drug loading, sustained release, predominant cancer cell uptake, effective cytotoxicity along with improved PK profile of DIONP could potentially make it an outstanding drug delivery strategy for breast cancer therapy.