Positively charged graphene/Fe3O4/polyethylenimine with enhanced drug loading and cellular uptake for magnetic resonance imaging and magnet-responsive cancer therapy

• Published in: Nano research 2017-07, Vol.10 (7), p.2280-2295
• Main Authors: Du, Baoji, Liu, Jianhua, Ding, Guanyu, Han, Xu, Li, Dan, Wang, Erkang, Wang, Jin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anchoring; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedical materials; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Coupling; Graphene; Hybrids; Infrared imaging; Internalization; Iron oxides; Irradiation; Magnetic resonance imaging; Materials Science; Nanocomposites; Nanoparticles; Nanotechnology; Polyethyleneimine; Research Article; Surface charge; Target recognition; Therapy; Thermal imaging; 四氧化三铁; 正电荷; 氧化石墨; 癌症治疗; 磁共振成像; 磁感应; 细胞摄取; 聚乙烯亚胺
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-016-1418-x

Enhanced cellular uptake efficiency of nanoparticles is important for their biomedical applications, including photothermal therapy （PTT） for cancer. In this study, a one-pot method was used to construct a positively charged and magnet-responsive nanocomposite comprising reduced graphene oxide anchoring iron oxide （RGI） with a polyethylenimine （PEI） modification, to improve the efficiency of cell internalization. The surface charge can be finely tuned using PEIs of different molecular weights. The obtained RGIlsk composite （RGI modified by 1.8 kDa PEI） could load indocyanine green （ICG） at a high mass ratio of 10：3 and ablate cancer cells using low-density laser irradiation because of its positively charged surface. In addition, the hybrids of RGI1.8k and ICG could kill most cancer cells at a laser density of 0.7 W/cm2 in vitro and 0.3 W/cm2 in vivo. At the same time, cell viability could be controlled by converting the external magnetic-field direction because of the enrichment of the magnet-responsive composite in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, RGIr8k-ICGs could be used as T2-weighted magnetic resonance and infrared thermal imaging agents. Coupled with the magnetic target effect, the imaging signal could be improved significantly. Therefore, RGII~sk-ICGs represent a new highly efficient PTT and imaging agent with great potential for cancer treatment.