The preparation and drug delivery of a graphene–carbon nanotube–Fe3O4nanoparticle hybrid

Abstract

We report a green and facile procedure of synthesizing a graphene nanosheet–carbon nanotube–iron oxide nanoparticle hybrid (GN–CNT–Fe₃O₄) as a promising platform for the loading and delivery of anticancer drugs. The obtained GN–CNT–Fe₃O₄ hybrid exhibited superparamagnetic properties with the saturation magnetization of 19.824 emu g⁻¹. This hybrid nanostructure possesses a superior capability of binding the anticancer drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) with a high loading capacity of up to 0.27 mg mg⁻¹ with a 5-FU concentration of 0.5 mg mL⁻¹, and also possesses a pH-activated release profile. Moreover, cellular uptake studies show that the resulting GN–CNT–Fe₃O₄ hybrid can be internalized efficiently by HepG2 cells. In vitro cytotoxicity tests suggest that the obtained GN–CNT–Fe₃O₄ hybrid is nontoxic for Chang liver cells, even at the high concentration of 80 μg mL⁻¹, however, the 5-FU-loaded GN–CNT–Fe₃O₄ hybrid showed significant cytotoxic effects in HepG2 cells. The results show that this novel 3D hybrid is a promising candidate for anti-cancer drug delivery systems.