A new drug carrier: Magnetite nanoparticles coated with amphiphilic block copolymer

This paper reports on the synthesis and characterization of 4 nm magnetite nanoparticles coated with amphiphilic block copolymers of poly(ethyl methacrylate)-b-poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PEMA-b-PHEMA) by surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), which can act as new potential carriers for hydrophobic targeted drug delivery. Vibrating sample magnetometer analysis indicated that the magnetite nanoparticles were superparamagnetic at room temperature. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was applied to studying the property of surface of magnetite nanoparticles, and the surface density of macromolecules was calculated. The grafting density of oleic acid, BrMPA and PEMA was 5.8, 3.9, 0.16 chain/nm2 respectively, which indicates that the initiation efficiency decreases due to the influence of large space of oleic acid molecules. In vitro progesterone and ( )-isoproterenol hydrochloride release in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) at pH 7.0 and 37°C was conducted in order to demonstrate the function of drug loading and release. The results showed that the amount of drug carried into the core-shell Fe3O4@PEMA-b-PHEMA depends on the length of hydrophobic segment of block copolymer. The release of progesterone (37% after 22 h in our previous work) was compared with the release of ( )-isoproterenol hydrochloride (80% after 50 min), demonstrating that the strong hydrophobic interaction between hydrophobic segment and drug can effectively control the release of hydrophobic drugs. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50573040) and Major State Basic Research Development Program of China (Grant No. 2007CB935601)