Cellular Uptake Behavior of Doxorubicin-Conjugated Nanodiamond Clusters for Efficient Cancer Therapy

This paper describes the design and fabrication of doxorubicin (Dox)-conjugated nanodiamond (ND) clusters with controlled sizes and cellular uptake behaviors of free Dox and Dox-conjugated ND clusters. The ND clusters with an average size of 45.84 nm exhibited a higher amount of cellular uptake as compared to the ND clusters with larger sizes. The amount of Dox taken up as free Dox increased initially and then decreased over time. In contrast, the amount of Dox taken up as Dox-ND clusters continuously increased and reached a plateau, resulting in high ablation efficiency. At the same Dox concentration, the cell viabilities after treatment with free Dox and Dox-ND clusters were 26.38 and 5.31%, respectively. The Dox-ND clusters potentially could be employed as efficient drug carriers for efficient cancer therapy.