Owing to the presence of multidrug resistance in tumor cells, conventional chemotherapy remains clinically intractable. To enhance the therapeutic efficacy of chemotherapeutic agents, targeting strategies based on polyethylene glycol coated zinc oxide nanoparticles modified with targeting ligands have gained significant attention in cancer therapy
We used the green‐bio method to synthesize folic acid modified erbitux conjugated zinc oxide nanoparticles complex for its use as a cancer‐targeted drug delivery system to achieve enhanced cellular uptake and anticancer efficacy. To investigate the expression level of E2F3 protein RT‐PCR and western blotting analysis was carried out.
In the present investigation, we synthesized folic acid (FA)-modified polyethylene glycol coated zinc oxide nanoparticles (PEG-ZnO NPs) loaded with erbitux (ErB) using a bio organic method, followed by FA adsorption on the surface of NPs. The FA-modified PEG-ZnO NPs were characterized in terms of particle morphology and size, encapsulation efficiency and drug release. Furthermore, the cytotoxicity and cellular uptake of the drug-loaded PEG-ZnO NPs were evaluated in breast cancer cells in vitro. We found that FA-modified ErB-PEG-ZnO NPs showed the highest cytotoxicity effect and cellular uptake efficiency under folic acid receptor mediation in breast cancer cells compared with unmodified PEG-ZnO NPs and free drug. The cellular uptake efficiency of FA-modified PEG-ZnO NPs appeared to be facilitated by the applied PEG-ZnO NPs field, but the difference did not reach statistical significance.
This study illustrates that this proposed formulation can be used as one new alternative treatment for patients bearing inaccessible tumors. Thus, functionalized-ZnO NPs could be used as a novel nanomaterial for selective chemotherapy.
622/PO/c/02/CPCSEA/2014.
622/PO/c/02/CPCSEA/2014.
Periyar University, Department of Zoology, Division of Cancer Nanomedicine
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All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.