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Synthesis, characterization, and in vitro biological evaluation of highly stable diversely functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles

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Abstract

In this article, we report the design and synthesis of a series of well-dispersed superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) using chitosan as a surface modifying agent to develop a potential T 2 contrast probe for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The amine, carboxyl, hydroxyl, and thiol functionalities were introduced on chitosan-coated magnetic probe via simple reactions with small reactive organic molecules to afford a series of biofunctionalized nanoparticles. Physico-chemical characterizations of these functionalized nanoparticles were performed by TEM, XRD, DLS, FTIR, and VSM. The colloidal stability of these functionalized iron oxide nanoparticles was investigated in presence of phosphate buffer saline, high salt concentrations and different cell media for 1 week. MRI analysis of human cervical carcinoma (HeLa) cell lines treated with nanoparticles elucidated that the amine-functionalized nanoparticles exhibited higher amount of signal darkening and lower T 2 relaxation in comparison to the others. The cellular internalization efficacy of these functionalized SPIONs was also investigated with HeLa cancer cell line by magnetically activated cell sorting (MACS) and fluorescence microscopy and results established selectively higher internalization efficacy of amine-functionalized nanoparticles to cancer cells. These positive attributes demonstrated that these nanoconjugates can be used as a promising platform for further in vitro and in vivo biological evaluations.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge IIT Kharagpur and CSIR, New Delhi for providing financial support for this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Dipsikha Bhattacharya, Sumanta K. Sahu, Manasmita Das & Panchanan Pramanik

  2. Department of Biotechnology, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India

    Indranil Banerjee, Debashish Mishra & Tapas K. Maiti

Authors
  1. Dipsikha Bhattacharya
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  2. Sumanta K. Sahu
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  3. Indranil Banerjee
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  4. Manasmita Das
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  5. Debashish Mishra
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  6. Tapas K. Maiti
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  7. Panchanan Pramanik
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Correspondence to Panchanan Pramanik.

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Bhattacharya, D., Sahu, S.K., Banerjee, I. et al. Synthesis, characterization, and in vitro biological evaluation of highly stable diversely functionalized superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles. J Nanopart Res 13, 4173–4188 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0362-7

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