A comparative study between iron oxide nanoparticles coated glutamic acid and L-lysine amino acids as magnetic bio-nanocarriers for cytarabine release

In this work, we synthesized magnetic iron oxide (Fe3O4) and functionalized it with the amino acids L-lysine (L-Lys) and glutamic acid (GLU), and loaded it with a cytarabine (CYT) anticancer drug. These nanoparticles have been used as magnetically responsive bio-nanocarriers for the targeted delivery of CYT to treat tumor cancer. The morphology and structure of the synthesized bio-nanocomposites were characterized by FE-SEM, XRD, FT-IR, TGA, and zeta potential analyses. The influence of various factors, such as solution pH, contact time, bio-nanocomposite dosages, temperature, and initial drug concentration on the sorption capacity of CYT by the bio-nanocomposites was determined. The isothermal sorption results were investigated using Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, and Dubinin-Radushkevich models and evaluated by non-linear regression analysis. The Langmuir model proved to be the most appropriate and showed that the adsorption of drug molecules on both the bio-nanocomposites was homogeneous and monolayer. Kinetic modelling showed good agreement with the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Thermodynamic analysis indicated that the adsorption of drug molecules on both the bio-nanocomposites was endothermic and spontaneous. In-vitro drug release experiments of CYT from CYT@Fe3O4@L-Lys show higher efficiency at acidic pH (83.17 %) than the CYT@Fe3O4@GLU bio-nanocarrier (63.06 %). The CYT@Fe3O4@L-Lys bio-nanocarrier shows super-paramagnetic performance, which is advantageous for controlled drug delivery and release by applying an external magnetic field. The drug release from CYT@Fe3O4@L-Lys and CYT@Fe3O4@GLU bio-nanocarriers could be shown the non-Fickian diffusion mechanism of drug release from both bio-nanocarriers.