Folic acid based carbon dot functionalized stearic acid-g-polyethyleneimine amphiphilic nanomicelle: Targeted drug delivery and imaging for triple negative breast cancer.

Development of advanced therapeutic modalities for the treatment of cancer are become a thirst area in the field of biomedical science now a day. Current therapeutic approaches to treat this fatal disease always refer to partial curability with unavoidable obstacles. Here, we have developed stearic-g-polyethyleneimine acid amphiphilic nanomicelle functionalized with folic acid-based carbon dots (CDs) for targeted anticancer drug (doxorubicin, DOX) delivery and concurrent bio-imaging for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Developed nanomicelle was characterized by FTIR, XRD, H NMR, fluorescence spectroscopy, TEM etc. Highest DOX release from the nanomicelle was observed at slightly acidic pH. It was also found that the nanomicelle can be successfully internalized by the MDA-MB-231 cells and able to inhibit cell proliferation. The IC value by free DOX against TNBC was around 10 μg/mL, whereas, DOX loaded CD functionalized stearic-g-polyethyleneimine (25 kDa) (DOX-CDSP-25) showed similar cytotoxicity on TNBC at the concentration of only 1.0 μg/mL, indicating the efficiency of the delivery system compared to that of free DOX. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed the effect of DOX-CDSP-25 on MDA-MB-231 cellular morphology in 24 h. Along with, the fluorescence property offered by folic acid derived CD allowed CDSP-25 to be acted as a promising bio-imaging tool for TNBC.