Nanomedicine has garnered significant interest owing to advances in drug delivery, effectively demonstrated in the treatment of certain diseases. Here, smart supermagnetic nanocomposites based on iron oxide nanoparticles (MNPs) coated with Pluronic F127 (F127) were developed for the delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) to tumor tissues. The XRD patterns for all samples revealed peaks consistent with Fe3O4, as shown by their indices (220), (311), (400), (422), (511), and (440), demonstrating that the structure of Fe3O4 did not change after the coating process. After loading with DOX, the as-prepared smart nanocomposites demonstrated drug-loading efficiency and drug-loading capacity percentages of 45 ± 0.10 and 17 ± 0.58% for MNP-F127-2-DOX and 65 ± 0.12 and 13 ± 0.79% for MNP-F127-3-DOX, respectively. Moreover, a better DOX release rate was observed under acidic conditions, which may be credited to the pH sensitivity of the polymer. In vitro analysis demonstrated the survival rate of approximately 90% in HepG2 cells treated with PBS and MNP-F127-3 nanocomposites. Furthermore, after treatment with MNP-F127-3-DOX, the survival rate decreased, confirming cellular inhibition. Hence, the synthesized smart nanocomposites showed great promise for drug delivery in liver cancer treatment, overcoming the limitations of traditional therapies.
Keywords: HepG2 cell line; Pluronic F127; doxorubicin; drug delivery; in vitro test; liver cancer; supermagnetic nanocomposites.