Graphene oxide–based nanocarrier for targeted anticancer therapy

Scientists from the Nanomaterials in Biomedicine research group at CATRIN focused on developing a nanocarrier that would enable targeted delivery of drugs to tumor cells. Their work, which aimed to increase the effectiveness of anticancer therapy through targeted drug delivery and the study of receptor-mediated cellular uptake, has been published in the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.

“The proposed nanoplatform is based on graphene oxide, whose surface was modified with PEG to ensure stability and good biocompatibility. Desired capability was introduced by functionalization with hyaluronic acid, which enables selective recognition of the CD44 receptor, frequently overexpressed on the surface of certain cancer cells. The anticancer drug doxorubicin was subsequently loaded onto the nanocarrier. Biological experiments performed on two cancer cell lines with different levels of CD44 receptor expression demonstrated that cells with higher CD44 expression exhibited more efficient nanocarrier uptake and enhanced anticancer activity compared to cells with low CD44 expression. Confocal microscopy and Raman spectroscopy further confirmed that the nanocarrier enters cells as an intact complex and enables intracellular drug release“, says Ludmila Žárská, the main author of the work.

 

“The study contributes to a better understanding of receptor-targeted graphene oxide–based nanoplatforms and provides experimental evidence supporting further research into targeted drug delivery strategies for anticancer therapy“, added Václav Ranc, corresponding author.