Paclitaxel and iron oxide loaded multifunctional nanoparticles for chemotherapy, fluorescence properties, and magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract The multifunctional nanoparticles constructed from triphenylamine‐poly(lactide‐co‐glycolide)‐poly(ethyleneglycol)‐poly(lactide‐co‐glycolide) (TPA‐PEP) and folate‐poly(2‐ethyl‐2oxazoline)‐poly(D,L‐lactide) (folate‐PEOz‐PLA) were developed in this study. Iron oxide nanoparticles (IOP) and paclitaxel (PTX) were coencapsulated in the nanoparticles with diameter less than 200 nm. The drug‐loaded nanoparticles emit fluorescence peak at 460 nm when excited with wavelength of 350 nm. The in vitro antitumor activity of the drug‐loaded nanoparticles was assessed by 3‐(4,5‐dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl)‐2,5‐diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays against HeLa cells. When the cells were exposed to the nanoparticles with different levels of folate but the same drug loading, cell viability decreases as the level of folate increases. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) analysis shows that cellular uptake is lower for the non‐folate–nanoparticles than that for the folate–nanoparticles. The in vitro and in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies indicate the better T2‐Weighted images can be obtained for the folate–nanoparticles. In the anticancer effect evaluation, tumor‐bearing mice administered with the 30%‐folate‐nanoparticles showed ∼50% reduction in tumor volume after 23 days. The multifunctional nanoparticles as drug carrier with capabilities of both tumor‐targeting and MRI present a new direction in drug delivery system development. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 2012.