Near-infrared light responsive dendrimers facilitate the extraction of bicalutamide from human plasma and urine

Background Today, it is well accepted that the quantitative measurement of anti-cancer drugs in human biological samples requires the development and validation of efficient bioanalytical methods. This study attempts to provide a high-capacity and thermo-sensitive nano-adsorbent for bicalutamide extraction from human biological fluids. Main Methods and Major Results In this study, five generations of thermo-sensitive dendrimers were synthesized onto the surface of WS2 nano-sheets. After drug-loading process from body fluids, the near-infrared (NIR) light (at 808 nm) was applied and light-to-heat conversion by the WS2 nano-sheets led to shrinkage in polymer chains, resulting the release of the entrapped drug. Finally, the extracted drug was analyzed via HPLC-UV system (at 270 nm). The final nano-adsorbent was described via FE-SEM, XRD, FT-IR, and TGA techniques. The adsorption isotherm data were well fitted by Langmuier isotherm model (R-2 = 0.9978). The mean recoveries for spiking bicalutamide at three different concentrations in plasma and urine samples were 92.12% and 94.54% under the NIR light irradiation. Conclusions and Implications We have developed a smart strategy to analyze bicalutamide in biological samples using near-infrared light irradiation in a controlled manner. All the results indicate the promising application of the proposed method for the extraction and determination of bicalutamide.