Design and evaluation of galactosylated chitosan/graphene oxide nanoparticles as a drug delivery system

We investigated a novel drug delivery system comprising nanoparticles based on galactosylated chitosan/graphene oxide/doxorubicin (GC-GO-DOX) for the therapeutic treatment of cancer. The drug delivery system was synthesized by loading a drug sample with galactosylated chitosan (GC) on a graphene oxide (GO) carrier. The results showed that the drug loading capacity was as high as 1.08 mg/mg (drug per polymer). The nanoparticles remained stable under physiological conditions, and the drug was released in a low pH environment (i.e., a tumor environment) and was pH-responsive. Cell uptake experiments and a cell proliferation analysis demonstrated that the nanoparticles had higher cytotoxicity for HepG2 and SMMC-7721 cells than chitosan/graphene oxide/doxorubicin (CS-GO-DOX) nanoparticles. Compared with CS-GO-DOX nanoparticles, the GC-GO-DOX nanoparticles exhibited a higher fluorescence intensity in tumor cells. In vivo anti-tumor experiments demonstrated that the GC-GO-DOX nanoparticles inhibit tumors better than the CS-GO-DOX nanoparticles. Nude mouse weight, tumor weight and tumor volume data indicated that the GC-GO-DOX tumor inhibition effect was better than that of the control group and the blank group. In summary, the nanoparticle investigated in this article is significant for tumor therapy.