Design and development of folic acid engineered magnetic graphene oxide nanosheets for selective synergistic chemophotothermal inhibition of lung cancer cell

Selective tumor targeting is considered as most advanced approach in nanomedicine. Targeted therapeutics will be useful for providing better therapeutic outcome in the cancer management. Surface engineering of carbon backbone based material is simplest approach compared to other polymeric substrate. The 2 dimensional backbone (2DC) like graphene oxide (GO) promote multifactorial surface architecture for design and delivery of multiple therapeutic agents. The present research explores the surface engineering of magnetic graphene oxide (GO@IO) using folic acid (FA) for selectivity towards folate receptor for the active delivery of Gefitinib (GF). The presence of oxygen embedded groups on the surface of GO promotes multi-payload with high loading efficiency. The advance analytical characterization reveals successful surface grafting of FA on the surface of GO@IOG with smooth textural characteristics. The surface grafting of FA protects the premature release of GF and release the content at targeted site. The in-vitro release characteristics reveals the prompt release of GF in physiological environment with 80 % release observed in 12h. The surface encapsulation improves the heacompatibility of anticancer drug thereby increase blood circulation time. The cytotoxicity assay performed on A549 cells shows 20-fold increase in inhibition compared to pure anticancer agent. The multifunctionalized strategy also improve the photothermal effect which further improve 9 % inhibition post FA grafting. The fabricated magnetic GO nanocarrier can be useful for contrast imaging and targeted drug delivery applications. Material engineering along with photothermal effect can relatively accomplish the development of standard protocol for complete eradication of cancer cell.