Magnetic nanoparticles decorated with PEGylated curcumin as dual targeted drug delivery: Synthesis, toxicity and biocompatibility study

Highlights: • Curcumin conjugated PEG was synthesized. • PEG-Cur was decorated on the surface of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP@PEG-Cur). • MNP@PEG-Cur showed pH sensitive drug release characteristic. • MTT assay showed that carrier and MNP@PEG-Cur were not cytotoxic at physiologic pH. • LD50, acute toxicity, and hemolysis assay proved the biocompatibility of carrier. -- Abstract: The problems associated with hydrophobic anticancer drugs are among the most important challenges to achieve efficient therapeutics for cancer treatment. In this study, PEGylated curcumin was used as the surface modification of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP@PEG-Cur) in order to simultaneously take advantage of magnetic targeting characteristic of nanoparticles and PEG conjugated drug. Curcumin was conjugated through EDC/NHS chemistry to the PEG hydroxyl functional groups, and then physically decorated on the surface of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP). The analysis of the conjugate and nanoparticles by FT-IR, ¹HNMR, FE-SEM, TEM, EDX, TGA and VSM confirmed the successful synthesis and proper physicochemical properties of MNP@PEG-Cur nanoparticles. The carrier showed pH dependent drug release profile with higher drug release at acidic media (pH = 5.4) compared to neural condition (pH = 7.4). In addition, LD₅₀ and hemolysis assay confirmed the biocompatibility of MNP@PEG-Cur. The cell viability assay also revealed that neither carrier, nor curcumin-loaded nanoparticles are cytotoxic at physiologic pH (7.4).