Fe₃O₄/Au/porous Au nanohybrid for efficient delivery of doxorubicin as a model drug

Fe₃O₄/Au/porous Au nanohybrids being bi-functional nanoparticles with magnetic properties and high porosity, were synthesized and used for drug delivery. To achieve this purpose, after Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles synthesis, a gold layer coats them to increase their stability. Then, to improve the loading capacity of Fe₃O₄/Au nanoparticles, a shell of porous gold was synthesized on the Fe₃O₄/Au surface by creating an Ag-Au nanohybrid layer on Fe₃O₄/Au and dissolving the metallic silver atoms in HNO₃ (0.01 M). The DLS results show that the synthesized nanohybrid has an average size of 68.0 ± 7.7 nm and a zeta potential of − 28.1 ± 0.2 mV. Finally, doxorubicin (DOX), as a pharmaceutical agent, was loaded onto the Fe₃O₄/Au/porous Au nanohybrids. The prepared nano-drug enhanced the therapeutic efficacy of DOX on MCF-7 cancer cells compared to the free DOX. These results confirmed a 1.5 times improvement in the antitumor activity of DOX-loaded Fe₃O₄/Au/porous Au nanohybrids. Graphical