Preparation and characterization of biodegradable magnetic nanoparticles biodegradable based on polyurethane for gene delivery into MCF-7 cells

The folate receptor (FR) is known to be over-expressed extracellularly on a variety of human cancers. Therefore, this molecule is an ideal candidate for targeting nanoparticles to drug delivery using these nanoparticles to cancer cells or cancer tissues. In this study, we designed an amphiphilic cationic Fe3O4-PEI-PU-PEG-FA nanoparticles. The prepared nanoparticles were characterized by FTIR, VSM, TEM measurements. FTIR indicated that the synthesis of Fe3O4-PEI-PU-PEG-FA nanoparticles have been performed successfully. Vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) showed that the biodegradable-magnetic nanoparticles were superparamagnetic at room temperature. The morphology of the Fe3O4 and Fe3O4-PEI-PU-PEG-FA nanoparticles were evaluated using a transmission electron microscopy. TEM showed the nanoparticles were spherical in shape. Moreover biocompatibility assay of Fe3O4-PEI-PU-PEG-FA nanoparticles was performed using MTT test. Also the ability of Fe3O4-PEI-PU-PEG-FA nanoparticles to DNA delivery into MCF-7 cells were analysis using MTT test and flow cytometry respectively. Interestingly, due to the incorporation of PU and PEG segments, this Fe3O4-PEI-PU-PEG-FA nanoparticles showed less toxicity but better gene transfection efficiency than PEI.