Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• hashem yaghoubi ¹
• Hadi Eskanlou ²
• Milad Danandeh Baghrabad ²
• Neda Farazi ³
• Bashir Nedaee Shakarab ⁴

¹ DEPARTEMENT

² Department of Biology, Ardabil Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil, Iran.

³ Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran.

⁴ Department of Physics, Ardabil Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ardabil, Iran.

Abstract

Simultaneous transfer of hydrophilic and hydrophobic drugs using nano- particles reduces side effects and also increases the effectiveness of treatment. Biocompatible polymers of polylactic acid, polyethylene glycol and chitosan were used to design the nanoparticles.Iron oxide and folic acid nanoparticles were used to induce magnetic properties and target the nanoparticles, respectively. Nanoparticles were prepared from a combination of folic acid (FA)-polyethylene glycol(PEG)-chitosan-polylactic acid, Fe3O4-OA and paclitaxol (PTX) and siRNA according to the solvent diffusion method. The morphology, size and surface charge of the nanoparticles as well as the loading percentage and release pattern of PTX and siRNA were investigated. MTT, fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry were used to evaluate the biocompati- bility and capability of MFMNPs nanoparticles in drug delivery and siRNA, respectively. The results showed that MFMNPs nanoparticles have a spherical structure and a size of about 250 nm and their surface charge was -9±1.6 millivolts. The siRNA loading percentage was significantly higher than PTX. Drug and siRNA release in acidic media is significantly increased. The IC50 for paclitaxel was 60.3 nM, while the MFMNPs/PTX and MFMNPs/siRNA/PTX nanoparticles were 76.5 and 78.3 nM, respectively.The ability of MFMNPs nanoparticles to transmit siRNA to MCF-7 cells was also confirmed by fluore- scence microscopy and flow cytometry. The results showed that MFMNPs nanoparticles had a high ability to transfer paclitaxol and siRNA to MCF-7 cells, while no significant toxicity was observed for these nanoparticles.

Keywords

• Paclitaxel
• Folic acid
• Polymer nanoparticles
• siRNA

Main Subjects

• Biochemistry