Synthesis of Magnetic Nanocarrier Conjugated by Folate Based on Tragacanth and In Vitro Investigation of their Efficiency on Breast Cancer Cells

In this research, a novel nanocarrier is synthesized based on tragacanth as a natural polysaccharide. For this purpose, carboxymethyl tragacanth (CMT) is first synthesized from tragacanth and then it is functionalized with isocyanate (IS) groups. In another parallel synthesis, magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) are prepared by the co-precipitation method and coated with SiO2 to form MNPs coated SiO2 (MNPs@SiO2). Then MNPs@SiO2 is reacted with CMT-IS to form Fe3O4@SiO2/CMT. In the second step, the MNPs@SiO2/CMT surface is aminated by reaction with 3-amino propyl triethoxy silane (APTES) and then it is reacted with folic acid (FA) as a targeting agent to form MNPs@SiO2/CMT/FA nanocarrier. The synthesized nanocarrier is characterized by FT-IR, SEM, EDX, TEM, XRD, VSM, TGA, and zeta potential analysis and then it is loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) as a typical anti-cancer drug. The in vitro drug release studies are carried out from the DOX-loaded nanocarrier. The pH sensitivity of the DOX-loaded nanocarrier is examined attwo different pHs. The effect of DOX-loaded nanocarrier is investigated on MCF7 human breast cancer cells and the rate of cancer cell death is determined by MTT assay and drug IC50. The changes in the morphology of the tumor cell nuclei are observed using fluorescence microscopy.