Hemolysis and Cytotoxicity Studies of Surface Functionalized and Bare Core-Shell Fe3O4 Nanoparticles

This paper reports the synthesis, characterization and biocompatibility analysis applying in-vitro Hemolysis and cytotoxicity tests on A549 cell line (human alveolar adenocarcinoma cell line) with the help of MTT assay, for magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) magnetite Fe3O4. First, Fe3O4 NPs were made using co-precipitation method. For adding the feature of biocompatibility, NPs were surface modified by incrusting with biopolymers like Polyethylene glycol (PEG), Oleic acid (OA), Silver, etc., All particles so synthesized were characterized employing X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The size of the particles was investigated from the (311) largest intensity diffraction peak from the Debye-Scherrer formula as similar to 8 nmfor Fe3O4. From the TEM image of the Fe3O4 NPs the average diameter of obtained as 7.8 nm +/- 1.0 nm. The surface modification of nanoparticles was determined by FTIR data analysis. In Hemolysis study, human blood was collected from healthy individuals, in EDTA coated tubes. We realized that on increasing the NPs concentration, Percentage Hemolysis (% H) heightened. Core/Bare Fe3O4 NPs have demonstrated to be highly haemolytic, revealing its higher toxicity. Considering, same NPs post coating with PEG, displayed significantly decreased hemolysis. This proves that coating of PEG, OA (biocompatible polymers) makes the core Fe3O4 NPs biocompatible and less toxic. Further, we investigated the effect of cellular uptake of uncoated and coated NPs on cytotoxicity of A549 cell line (Human lung adenocarcinoma epithelial cell line) employing MTT assay. We found that bare particles are about 20% more toxic than coated NPs. Hence, Fe3O4 NPs can be used for biomedical applications like MRI contrast agent, hyperthermia, therapeutic drug delivery etc., but coating them with biocompatible polymers makes them less toxic.