“Smart” nickel oxide based core–shell nanoparticles for combined chemo and photodynamic cancer therapy

Abstract

We report “smart” nickel oxide nanoparticles (NOPs) as multimodal cancer therapy agent. Water-dispersible and light-sensitive NiO core was synthesized with folic acid (FA) connected bovine serum albumin (BSA) shell on entrapped doxorubicin (DOX). The entrapped drug from NOP-DOX@BSA-FA was released in a sustained way (64 hours, pH=5.5, dark conditions) while a robust release was found under red light exposure (in 1/2 hour under λ_max=655 nm, 50 mW/cm², at pH=5.5). The cell viability, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and diphenylisobenzofuran assays conducted under light and dark conditions revealed a high photodynamic therapy potential of our construct. Furthermore, we found that the combined effect of DOX and NOPs from NOP-DOX@BSA-FA resulted in cell death approximately eightfold high compared to free DOX. We propose that NOP-DOX@BSA-FA is a potential photodynamic therapy agent and a collective drug delivery system for the systemic administration of cancer chemotherapeutics resulting in combination therapy.

Keywords:

• light-triggered drug release
• cancer
• bovine serum albumin
• multi-model therapy

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the generous fund of deanship of research in King Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under research group grant no RG-150. The authors are grateful to Mr Abdul Haleem, PhD student, Department of Microbiology, Quaid-i-Azam University, and Mr Naeem at National Centre for Physics for UV–VIS and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy instrumentation time and assistance. Ms Shazia Bano gives thanks to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for the Indigenous Fellowship for their support regarding her PhD studies.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.