An anticancer drug loading and release study to ternary GO-Fe3O4-PPy and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs nanocomposites for photothermal chemotherapy

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a new treatment method being developed against traditional cancer therapy methods. In this study, graphene oxide-iron oxide-polypyrrole (GO-Fe3O4-PPy) and iron oxide@polypyrrolenitrogen doped graphene quantum dots (Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs) ternary nanocomposites having superior photo thermal and magnetic properties were loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) anticancer drug. The loading and release of the DOX was investigated by UV-visible spectroscopy. At the end of 48 h, the cumulative release of DOX from GO-Fe3O4-PPy/DOX and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs/DOX at pH 5.5 and pH 7.4 was obtained as 99.55% +/- 0.20, 48.87% +/- 0.20% and 97.88% +/- 0.45, 38.82% +/- 0.26, respectively. After a short period of time like 4 h and 8 h, NIR-triggered release of DOX was increased significantly compared to drug release without NIR. The cytotoxic effects on the 4T1 mouse breast cancer cells of GO-Fe3O4-PPy/DOX and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs/DOX drug loaded nanocomposites were determined by MTT test. The increase of DOX release with NIR effect was demonstrated by both in-vitro cytotoxicity studies and confocal laser microscopy images. In summary, multifunctional GO-Fe3O4-PPy/DOX and Fe3O4 @PPy-NGQDs/DOX nanocomposites have great potential for photothermal chemotherapy.