Advancing prostate cancer therapy: synthesis and characterization of docetaxel-loaded magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles for controlled drug release.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men worldwide, and current drug administration methods of front-line drugs like Docetaxel (DXL) face challenges, including non-specific treatment causing several side effects and the development of drug resistance, which affects patients' response and quality of life during treatment. Hence, there is a need for drug carriers such as Iron oxide nanoparticles, which are suitable for novel drug delivery systems due to low toxicity, biocompatibility, loading capacity, and controlled drug delivery to cancer cells. The purpose of the present study was to synthesize DXL-loaded pegylated magnetic Iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4NPs) for controlled drug release in prostate cancer cells. In this study, Fe3O4NPs were synthesized by the co-precipitation, functionalized with folic acid (FA), loaded with DXL and encapsulated with polyethylene glycol (PEG). Structural analysis was done using ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy which showed changes in absorption spectra with each attached molecule a blue shift was observed due to particle size increase. X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern showed that pure magnetite nanoparticles were synthesized. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) results showed a peak at 583, 1089, and 1584 cm-1 these confirmed that Fe3O4 NPs were synthesized. The Langmuir adsorption isotherm model (R2 =0.9947) was favoured over the Freundlich (R2 =0.9441) and Temkin (R2=0.8218). Drug release was faster at a potential of Hydrogen (pH) of 4.8 compared to pH 6.0, 7.0, and pH 7.45 with drug release percentage of 62.4%. 37.8%, 28.3%, and 24.0% respectively after 72 hr. Un-PEGylated Docetaxel-loaded nanoparticles showed a rapid drug release of about 98.8% after 7 hr. Drug release follows the Korsmeyer-Peppas kinetic model (R2= 0.9949) via the Fickian release mechanism. This study showed that Docetaxel-loaded pegylated Fe3O4NPs could be beneficial for increasing the effect of anticancer drugs on cancer cells while minimizing side effects.