Pharmaceutics (Oct 2022)

Orange-Peel-Derived Nanobiochar for Targeted Cancer Therapy

  • Daniela Iannazzo,
  • Consuelo Celesti,
  • Claudia Espro,
  • Angelo Ferlazzo,
  • Salvatore V. Giofrè,
  • Mario Scuderi,
  • Silvia Scalese,
  • Bartolo Gabriele,
  • Raffaella Mancuso,
  • Ida Ziccarelli,
  • Giuseppa Visalli,
  • Angela Di Pietro

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics14102249
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 10
p. 2249

Abstract

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Cancer-targeted drug delivery systems (DDS) based on carbon nanostructures have shown great promise in cancer therapy due to their ability to selectively recognize specific receptors overexpressed in cancer cells. In this paper, we have explored a green route to synthesize nanobiochar (NBC) endowed with graphene structure from the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of orange peels and evaluated the suitability of this nanomaterial as a nanoplatform for cancer therapy. In order to compare the cancer-targeting ability of different widely used targeting ligands (TL), we have conjugated NBC with biotin, riboflavin, folic acid and hyaluronic acid and have tested, in vitro, their biocompatibility and uptake ability towards a human alveolar cancer cell line (A549 cells). The nanosystems which showed the best biological performances—namely, the biotin- and riboflavin- conjugated systems—have been loaded with the poorly water-soluble drug DHF (5,5-dimethyl-6a-phenyl-3-(trimethylsilyl)-6,6a-dihydrofuro[3,2-b]furan-2(5H)-one) and tested for their anticancer activity. The in vitro biological tests demonstrated the ability of both systems to internalize the drug in A549 cells. In particular, the biotin-functionalized NBC caused cell death percentages to more than double with respect to the drug alone. The reported results also highlight the positive effect of the presence of oxygen-containing functional groups, present on the NBC surface, to improve the water dispersion stability of the DDS and thus make the approach of using this nanomaterial as nanocarrier for poorly water-soluble drugs effective.

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