Functionalized magnetic iron oxide/alginate core-shell nanoparticles for targeting hyperthermia

Abstract

Shih-Hsiang Liao,1 Chia-Hung Liu,2 Bishnu Prasad Bastakoti,3 Norihiro Suzuki,7 Yung Chang,4 Yusuke Yamauchi,3 Feng-Huei Lin,5,6 Kevin C-W Wu1,6 1Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University No 1, Taipei, 2Department of Urology, Taipei Medical University-Shuang Ho Hospital, New Taipei City, Taiwan; 3National Institute for Materials Science, Ibaraki, Japan; 4R&D Center for Membrane Technology and Department of Chemical Engineering, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taoyua, 5Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University No 1, Taipei City, 6Division of Medical Engineering Research, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli County, Taiwan, 7International Center for Young Scientists (ICYS), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan Abstract: Hyperthermia is one of the promising treatments for cancer therapy. However, the development of a magnetic fluid agent that can selectively target a tumor and efficiently elevate temperature while exhibiting excellent biocompatibility still remains challenging. Here a new core-shell nanostructure consisting of inorganic iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles as the core, organic alginate as the shell, and cell-targeting ligands (ie, D-galactosamine) decorated on the outer surface (denoted as Fe3O4@Alg-GA nanoparticles) was prepared using a combination of a pre-gel method and coprecipitation in aqueous solution. After treatment with an AC magnetic field, the results indicate that Fe3O4@Alg-GA nanoparticles had excellent hyperthermic efficacy in a human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line (HepG2) owing to enhanced cellular uptake, and show great potential as therapeutic agents for future in vivo drug delivery systems. Keywords: hyperthermia, iron oxide, alginate, pre-gel, targeting