Cisplatin@US-tube carbon nanocapsules for enhanced chemotherapeutic delivery

Abstract

The use of chemotherapeutic drugs in cancer therapy is often limited by problems with administration such as insolubility, inefficient biodistribution, lack of selectivity, and inability of the drug to cross cellular barriers. To overcome these limitations, various types of drug delivery systems have been explored, and recently, carbon nanotube (CNT) materials have also garnered attention in the area of drug delivery. In this study, we describe the preparation, characterization, and in vitro testing of a new ultra-short single-walled carbon nanotube (US-tube)-based drug delivery system for the treatment of cancer. In particular, the encapsulation of cisplatin (CDDP), a widely-used anticancer drug, within US-tubes has been achieved, and the resulting CDDP@US-tube material characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and inductively-coupled optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). Dialysis studies performed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at 37 °C have demonstrated that CDDP release from CDDP@US-tubes can be controlled (retarded) by wrapping the CDDP@US-tubes with Pluronic-F108 surfactant. Finally, the anticancer activity of pluronic-wrapped CDDP@US-tubes has been evaluated against two different breast cancer cell lines, MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231, and found to exhibit enhanced cytotoxicity over free CDDP after 24 hours. These studies have laid the foundation for developing US-tube-based delivery of chemotherapeutics, with drug release mainly limited to within cancer cells only.

Carbon nanotubes as cancer therapeutic carriers and mediators

“…[37][38][39][40] Pt(IV)-conjugated CNTs were constructed to effectively deliver cisplatin (cis-dichlorodiammineplatinum, CDDP). [41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] Dhar et al 41 developed amine-functionalized SWCNTs (SWCNTs-phospholipid-PEG-NH 2 ) as a "longboat delivery system" for Pt-based CDDP. A complex of folate and CDDP was linked to amide bonds of SWCNTs to comprise the "longboat", which was internalized into cancer cells by endocytosis.…”

In vitro controlled release of cisplatin from gold-carbon nanobottles via cleavable linkages

“…[25][26][27] Accordingly, the incorporation of guest molecules into the hollow space of CNTs had been demonstrated in various studies. 13,[28][29][30][31] However, the open-tips of CNTs are impediment to stable entrapment and controlled release of drug molecules in the hollow space of CNTs. Our group has previously proposed the use of C 60 to seal the open-ends of single-walled carbon nanotubes or double-walled carbon nanotubes filled with chemotherapeutics hexamethylmelamine.…”

Investigation of different methods for cisplatin loading using single-walled carbon nanotube

“…(Bessrour et al, 2012;. Prevention of drug structural change is the principle reason of cisplatin encapsulation, in order to retain the pharmacological activity of the drugs after arriving to the target sites (Guven et al, 2012;Li et al, 2012).…”