Synthesis of Polymer Coated Iron Oxide Nanoparticles for Drug Release by Applying Alternating Magnetic Field

Abstract

Magnetically controlled drug release is a promising alternative to conventional cancer treatment, having the potential to improve the therapeutic effect and decrease side effects. Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) offer promising potential for magnetically controlled drug release due to their superparamagnetic properties and tunable surface characteristics. By incorporating drugs into or onto these nanoparticles and coating them with biocompatible polymers, such systems can be created where drug release is triggered or modulated by external magnetic fields. In this study IONPs were synthesized by co-precipitation method and functionalized with oleic acid to incorporate hydrophobicity to them. An optimization study for the effect of amount of oleic acid was conducted. For 1.2ml of oleic per 200mg of IONPs the hydrodynamic size of IONPs was observed to be minimum i.e., 57nm±0.27. These optimized IONPs were encapsulated in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), PLGA using Flash Nanoprecipitation. Flash nanoprecipitation is a versatile and scalable technique used for the rapid and efficient encapsulation of hydrophobic drugs or other compounds into nanoparticles. Initially, bare PLGA nanoparticles were made by flash nanoprecipitation, after optimizing the conditions for bare PLGA nanoparticles, Paclitaxel and IONPs were co-encapsulated in PLGA. The encapsulation was confirmed with different characterization techniques such as STEM,EDX, FTIR and magneTherm. It was observed as the concentration of IONPs in flash nanoprecipitation is increased from 1mg/ml to 3mg/ml more encapsulated in PLGA. But for concentration 4mg/ml to 6mg/ml the IONPs precipitate faster than PLGA and attach to the outside surface of PLGA instead of being encapsulated. Magnetically controlled drug release was studied using the magneTherm. The results indicated that it is possible to co-encapsulate Paclitaxel and IONPs in PLGA using flash nanoprecipitation. And we can observe magnetically controlled drug release from these encapsulated nanoparticles