Designing organic-nano particles for tracking and development of silibinin delivery in breast cancer cell line

Abstract

Nowadays, the collaboration of medical science and nanotechnology has taken novel approaches to the development of cancer therapeutic efficacy by means of multifunctional nanocarriers with drug delivery and imaging function. In this work we designed a type of biocompatible fluorescence nanocarrier, chitosan-carbon dot (CD) hybrid nanogel (CCHNs), for cell imaging and pH-responsive therapeutic agent's delivery application. Methods: The green CDs were synthesized via a facile single-step hydrothermal method from tomato juice. Chitosan polymer was used as a carrier to co-delivery CDs and the anti-cancer drug with low solubility, silibinin (SIL), to design the SIL-CCHNs system. The successful uptake of final fluorescent nanoparicle into MCF-7 breast cancer cell occurs after optimizing the nanostructure and examining its physicochemical properties by DLS, FTIR, SEM, TEM, and UV-visible techniques. Result and discussion: After the embedment of CDs in chitosan nanogel, the resultant CCHNs demonstrated the optical properties similar to that of free-CDs, desirable size distribution (55.22 nm) with positive surface charge, suitable loading capacity for SIL (35 %), and drug release vulnerable to pH changes. The fluorescent nanocarrier was able to transfer Sil to MCF-7 cancer cells without remarkable toxicity. The findings of the fluorescent microscope indicated that after 4 hours, the strong fluorescent signal was received from cells containing CCHNs compared to free CDs, and could confirm the ability of hybrid nanogels to high cellular uptake.