PEGylated nanographene oxide for delivery of water-insoluble cancer drugs.

ABSTRACT: It is known that many potent, often aromatic drugs are water insoluble, which has hampered their use for disease treatment. In this work, we functionalized nanographene oxide (NGO), a novel graphitic material, with branched polyethylene glycol (PEG) to obtain a biocompatible NGO-PEG conjugate stable in various biological solutions, and used them for attaching hydrophobic aromatic molecules including a camptothecin (CPT) analogue, SN38, noncovalently via pi-pi stacking. The resulting NGO-PEG-SN38 complex exhibited excellent water solubility while maintaining its high cancer cell killing potency similar to that of the free SN38 molecules in organic solvents. The efficacy of NGO-PEG-SN38 was far higher than that of irinotecan (CPT-11), a FDA-approved water soluble SN38 prodrug used for the treatment of colon cancer. Our results showed that graphene is a novel class of material promising for biological applications including future in vivo cancer treatment with various aromatic, low-solubility drugs.

SUBMITTER: Liu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2597374 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature