Chitosan-grafted folic acid decorated one-dimensional GONS: A biocompatible drug cargo for targeted co-delivery of anticancer agents.

In conventional chemotherapy, the cancer cells can become highly resilient due to a phenomenon known as multi-drug resistance (MDR). The co-delivery of chemotherapeutic agents assisted with novel nanocarrier-based targeted DDS may counter the MDR issues and subsequently improve their therapeutic efficacy. In line with this, the present work deals with the development of 1D graphene oxide nanoscrolls (GONS)-based nano delivery system for co-delivery of chemosensitizer along with the chemotherapeutic agent. Herein, the 1D GONS nanocarrier was initially functionalized with chitosan (CS) biopolymer and folic acid (FA) further to enhance their biocompatibility and target-specific co-delivery. The resultant GONS-CS-FA (GCF) nanocarriers were co-loaded with doxorubicin (DOX) and caffeic acid (CA) at different weight proportions with respect to nanocarrier and drug composition. The optimum loading efficiency of 51.14 ± 1.47 % (DOX) and 49.70 ± 1.19 % (CA) was observed for GCF: drug ratio of 2.5 with drug composition of 1:1. In vitro release at pH 5 yielded ~83 % DOX and 75 % CA, compared to ~71 % DOX and 61 % CA at pH 7.4 over 7 days, suggesting a higher and targeted drug release in the cancer microenvironment. Cytotoxicity tests revealed selective apoptosis in cancer cells (A549) while maintaining cytocompatibility with normal cells (HEK293).

Novel strategy for synthesis of magnetic dummy molecularly imprinted nanoparticles based on functionalized silica as an efficient sorbent for the determination of acrylamide in potato chips: Optimization by experimental design methodology.

This study discusses a novel and simple method for the preparation of magnetic dummy molecularly imprinted nanoparticles (MDMINPs). Firstly, Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) were synthesized as a magnetic component. Subsequently, MDMINPs were constructed via the sol-gel strategy using APTMS as the functional monomer. Urethane was considered as dummy template to avoid residual template and TEOS as the cross linker. The prepared MDMINPs were used for the pre-concentration of acrylamide from potato chips. Quantification was carried out by high performance liquid chromatography with UV detection (HPLC-UV). The impact of influential variables such as pH, amount of sorbent, sonication time and eluent volume were well investigated and optimized using a central composite design. The particles had excellent magnetic property and high selectivity to the targeted molecule. In optimized conditions, the recovery ranged from 94.0% to 98.0% with the detection limit of 0.35µgkg(-1).