Folate attached, curcumin loaded Fe sub(3)O sub(4) nanoparticles: A novel multifunctional drug delivery system for cancer treatment

Study and development of drug delivery nanosystem for cancer treatment are attracting great attention in recent years. In this work, we studied the role of folic acid as a targeting factor on magnetic nanoparticle Fe sub(3)O sub(4) based curcumin loading nanosystem. Characteristics of the nanosystems were investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), while targeting role of folic was accessed in vivo on tumor bearing mice. The results showed that folate attached Fe sub(3)O sub(4) based curcumin loading nanosystem has very small size and exhibits better targeting effect compared to the counterpart without folate. In addition, magnetic induction heating of this nanosystem evidenced its potential for cancer hyperthermia.