Ultrasonic atomizer driven development of doxorubicin-chitosan nanoparticles as anticancer therapeutics: Evaluation of anionic cross-linkers

Abstract

Doxorubicin is the most common, FDA approved anticancer drug used for cancer therapy, which produces several undesirable side effects to healthy cells. Controlled and targeted therapy is presently gaining significant attention to counter the adverse effects of drugs. This research aims to develop doxorubicin (DOX) loaded chitosan nanoparticles through the ultrasonic atomizer, focusing on the use of two different cross-linkers i.e., poly (sodium 4-styrene sulfonate) and sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) forming Ch-PSS-DOX and Ch-TPP-DOX nanoparticles respectively. The formulation showed an average size of 80 ± 30 nm for Ch-PSS-DOX and 120 ± 50 nm for Ch-TPP-DOX Nps showed~34% and ~44% drug entrapment efficiency in Ch-PSS-DOX and Ch-TPP-DOX Nps respectively. In-vitro drug release studies showed a controlled and pH-dependent release of DOX throughout 168 h. The cytocompatibility of both the formulation was checked using MTT assay on HeLa and HEK-293 cells, show the preferential killing of HeLa cells as compare to HEK-293 cells, cellular uptake of nanoparticles was confirmed by confocal laser scanning microscopy. The results clearly indicate that the synthesis of chitosan nanoparticles using ultrasonic nanoparticles with different crosslinkers significantly affects the properties of nanoparticles in every way comparing from their size to their in-vitro drug uptake and release. © 2020 Elsevier B.V.