Chitosan‐Functionalized Graphene Oxide as a Nanocarrier for Drug and Gene Delivery

Abstract

The covalent functionalization of graphene oxide (GO) with chitosan (CS) is successfully accomplished via a facile amidation process. The CS-grafted GO (GO-CS) sheets consist of about 64 wt.% CS, which imparts them with a good aqueous solubility and biocompatibility. Additionally, the physicochemical properties of GO-CS are studied. As a novel nanocarrier, GO-CS is applied to load a water-insoluble anticancer drug, camptothecin (CPT), via π-π stacking and hydrophobic interactions. It is demonstrated that GO-CS possesses a superior loading capacity for CPT, and the GO-CS-CPT complexes show remarkably high cytotoxicity in HepG2 and HeLa cell lines compared to the pure drug. At the same time, GO-CS is also able to condense plasmid DNA into stable, nanosized complexes, and the resulting GO-CS/pDNA nanoparticles exhibit reasonable transfection efficiency in HeLa cells at certain nitrogen/phosphate ratios. Therefore, the GO-CS nanocarrier is able to load and deliver both anticancer drugs and genes.

Cell Growth Inhibition Effect of DsiRNA Vectorised by Pectin-Coated Chitosan-Graphene Oxide Nanocomposites as Potential Therapy for Colon Cancer

“…Upon mixing GO into CS solution, irregular shape of nanocomposites was observed as shown in Figure 4(b). Similar morphology was also reported by Bao et al [16], in which CS-GO appear to be coarse and some protuberances could be seen on the surface, which mainly were generated from the polymer wrapping and folding. Figure 4(c) shows formation of small, rounded, and smooth surface of CS-GO-DsiRNA nanocomposites.…”

“…GO analysed under an electron microscope appeared to be in layers of lateral dimension sheets with sharp edges (Figure 4(a)). It was reported that GO sheets exist with very sharp edges and flat surfaces [16] that coincided with the GO produced in current study. Besides, large surface area of GO sheets is usually utilised as support for growth and stabilisation of nanoparticles [30].…”

“…The peak then shifted to 1767.15 cm −1 for CS-GO-pectin nanocomposites, and this might be attributed to conjugation that moves absorption to a lower number. This was further confirmed when Bao et al [16] reported that residual carbonyl moieties (C=O) on the basal plane and periphery of GO can be represented by small absorbance peak appearing at 1740 cm −1 . The peak then shifted to 1767.15 cm −1 for CS-GO-pectin nanocomposites, and this might be attributed to conjugation that moved absorption to a lower number.…”

“…GO has been combined with CS to form a nanocarrier with better aqueous solubility and biocompatibility. In addition, it can exhibit powerful loading capacity besides having the ability to condense plasmid DNA into stable, nanosized complexes [16]. In an attempt to ensure that CS-GO-DsiRNA nanocomposites would be delivered to the target site successfully, pectin was used to coat the nanocomposites due to its unique property that will be degraded by colonic microflora.…”

Graphene Oxide/Ag Nanoparticles Cooperated with Simvastatin as a High Sensitive X‐Ray Computed Tomography Imaging Agent for Diagnosis of Renal Dysfunctions

“…[5][6][7] In studies of drug carrier and disease therapy, most researchers have been paying great attention to therapy of graphene and its derivatives to tumor. [8][9][10][11][12][13] Ma et al [14] constructed a targeting GO drug carrier using folic acid conjugated bovine serum albumine (FA-BSA) as both the stabilizer and targeting agent, then used as a targeting drug delivery carrier to treat human breast cancer cells.…”