Functionalized R9–reduced graphene oxide as an efficient nano-carrier for hydrophobic drug delivery

Abstract

Loading of hydrophobic drugs on smart carbon nano-carriers is a challenging issue for developing advanced drug delivery systems. We introduced a novel, stable, functionalized, and targeted graphene-based drug delivery system for smart transportation of hydrophobic agents. For this purpose, the planar size of graphene oxide (GO) sheets was initially engineered using ultra-sonic waves under controlled conditions. The sonication treatment not only tuned the GO sheet sizes, but also led to formation of desired reactive groups, appropriate for developing functionalized and targeted drug carriers. Afterwards, the hydrothermal reaction was simultaneously employed for both grafting R9 peptides and reduction of GO sheets. Therefore, the produced functional structure is an R9–rGO complex with proper stability in physiological solutions and also with a high-performance loading capability of Paclitaxel (PX). The in vitro experiments revealed that the R9–rGO–PX compound was efficiently uptook by Hela cancer cell lines, and reduced the viability of Hela and MCF-7 cells more than 90% after 72 hours. The proposed approach has the advantage of green production of an applicable graphene-based drug delivery system for improving the smart transportation of hydrophobic anti-cancer drugs.