Synergistic performance of triggered drug release and photothermal therapy of MCF7 cells based on laser activated PEGylated GO + DOX.

Graphene oxide is used as a singular 2D nano-carrier in cancer therapy. Here, graphene oxide is used as a hybrid chemo-drug graphene oxide (GO) + doxorubicin (DOX), mainly due to its unique chemical and optical properties. The laser triggers GO + DOX for selective drug delivery to optimize the drug release. The characterization of GO is investigated in terms of laser properties at 808 nm. Furthermore, the laser activates GO + DOX compounds to treat MCF7 cancerous cells. The drug release strongly depends on the temperature rise that mainly effects on the viability of the cancerous cells of interest. DOX simultaneously acts as a chemo-drug and as an optical fluorescent agent, whereas GO performs as an efficient photothermal nano-carrier. In fact, the GO-DOX hybrid drug demonstrates multifunctional during malignant cell treatment. We have shown that the laser heating of GO enhances the release percentage up to a treatment yield of 90%. This arises from the synergistic nature of DOX and GO compounds in simultaneous chemo/photo thermal therapy. Furthermore, the fluorescence property of DOX is used to assess the GO uptake using confocal microscope imaging.