Synthesis of folic acid-conjugated glycodendrimer with magnetic β-cyclodextrin core as a pH-responsive system for tumor-targeted co-delivery of doxorubicin and curcumin

One of the most important applications of nanotechnology in cancer treatment involves the design of magnetic nanocomposites for the targeted delivery of anticancer drugs to cancer cells. This study aims to develop a novel, appropriate, and efficient magnetic carrier having antioxidant properties for the controlled release of anticancer drugs, hydrophilic doxorubicin (DOX), and hydrophobic curcumin (CUR) to cancer cells using folic acid conjugated with magnetic glycodendrimer (Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA). The synthesized carrier was characterized using DLS, EDX, XRD, BET, FT‐IR, Zeta potential, VSM, TEM, and SEM analysis. The TEM results showed that synthesized Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA have a spherical-like core-shell structure with an average diameter of approximately 533 nm. The encapsulation efficiency (EE) of Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA was found to be 98.96% for DOX and 70.91% for CUR. The release studies of DOX and CUR from Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA showed that maximum release occurs at pH 5 which means it has a controlled pH-responsive behavior. In vitro cytotoxicity and confocal microscopy of the as-synthesized Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA in MDA-MB-231 cells clearly showed that the prepared carrier had no significant cytotoxicity and could easily enter the cell. Furthermore, the in vitro antioxidant capacity of Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA was evaluated by DPPH assay and the results exhibited that the synthesized carrier has excellent antioxidant activity (75.45%). Therefore, the obtained glycodendrimer in this study due to their target ability under a magnetic field, excellent biocompatibility, good colloidal stability, simple preparing method, and good antioxidant activity could be used as a promising targeted co-drug delivery system for cancer therapy. [Display omitted] •Fe3O4-β-CD-CTD-FA nanocomposite with antioxidant properties successfully prepared.•The resulted nanocomposite was applied for co-delivery of DOX and CUR to breast cancer cells.•In vitro cytotoxicity and confocal microscopy illustrated that the nanocomposite had no significant cytotoxicity and could easily enter the cells.