Preparation, characterization and in vitro evaluation of magnesium ferrite superparamagnetic nanoparticles as a novel radiosensitizer of breast cancer cells

Abstract One of the noble ways to increase the efficacy of radiotherapy (RT) is to use nanoparticles (NPs) as radiosensitizers and this can be too much attractive for researchers. Here, effects of RT in the presence of superparamagnetic magnesium ferrite spinel (MgFe2O4) nanoparticles (SPMNPs) on the breast cancer cells (MCF-7) are reported as a radiosensitizers of X-ray irradiation. First, Small-sized MgFe2O4 SPMNPs were successfully prepared by a hydrothermal technique. Its morphology, crystal structure, magnetic and optical properties were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–visible spectrophotometer (UV–vis), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and vibration sample magnetometer (VSM). MTT (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay was evaluated to determine the cytotoxicity and cell viability of breast cancer cells contaminated by different concentration of MgFe2O4 SPMNPs. The results obtained from MTT assay in vitro showed that not only the MgFe2O4 SPMNPs had no significant cytotoxicity at low concentrations, but also high increase in the cell destruction was observed in the MgFe2O4 SPMNPs under 2 and 4 Gy 6-MV X-ray irradiation. According to these results, MgFe2O4 SPMNPs as radiosensitizer can be interesting due to their low cytotoxicity and their high cell destruction, and this holds great promise for developing a new strategy in RT of breast cancer cells.