Boron and Gadolinium Loaded Fe₃O₄ Nanocarriers for Potential Application in Neutron Capture Therapy

In this article, a novel method of simultaneous carborane- and gadolinium-containing compounds as efficient agents for neutron capture therapy (NCT) delivery via magnetic nanocarriers is presented. The presence of both Gd and B increases the efficiency of NCT and using nanocarriers enhances selectivity. These factors make NCT not only efficient, but also safe. Superparamagnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles were treated with silane and then the polyelectrolytic layer was formed for further immobilization of NCT agents. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) and Mössbauer spectroscopies, dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), vibrating-sample magnetometry (VSM) were applied for the characterization of the chemical and element composition, structure, morphology and magnetic properties of nanocarriers. The cytotoxicity effect was evaluated on different cell lines: BxPC-3, PC-3 MCF-7, HepG2 and L929, human skin fibroblasts as normal cells. average size of nanoparticles is 110 nm; magnetization at 1T and coercivity is 43.1 emu/g and 8.1, respectively; the amount of B is 0.077 mg/g and the amount of Gd is 0.632 mg/g. Successful immobilization of NCT agents, their low cytotoxicity against normal cells and selective cytotoxicity against cancer cells as well as the superparamagnetic properties of nanocarriers were confirmed by analyses above.