Design and evaluation of galactosylated chitosan/graphene oxide nanoparticles as a drug delivery system.

We investigated a novel drug delivery system comprising nanoparticles based on galactosylated chitosan/graphene oxide/doxorubicin (GC–GO–DOX) for the therapeutic treatment of cancer. The drug delivery system was synthesized by loading a drug sample with galactosylated chitosan (GC) on a graphene oxide (GO) carrier. The results showed that the drug loading capacity was as high as 1.08 mg/mg (drug per polymer). The nanoparticles remained stable under physiological conditions, and the drug was released in a low pH environment (i.e., a tumor environment) and was pH-responsive. Cell uptake experiments and a cell proliferation analysis demonstrated that the nanoparticles had higher cytotoxicity for HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells than chitosan/graphene oxide/doxorubicin (CS–GO–DOX) nanoparticles. Compared with CS–GO–DOX nanoparticles, the GC–GO–DOX nanoparticles exhibited a higher fluorescence intensity in tumor cells. In vivo anti-tumor experiments demonstrated that the GC–GO–DOX nanoparticles inhibit tumors better than the CS–GO–DOX nanoparticles. Nude mouse weight, tumor weight and tumor volume data indicated that the GC–GO–DOX tumor inhibition effect was better than that of the control group and the blank group. In summary, the nanoparticle investigated in this article is significant for tumor therapy.