PEGYLATED SWCNTs AS NEW DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS: A STUDY OF DOXORUBICIN ADSORPTION

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have attracted great interest due to their unique physicochemical properties such as their potential biocompatibility or their propensity for chemical functionalization, their light weight, mechanical strength, and their smart flexible structure which enable them to carry a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic drugs such as antitumor drugs as new kind of targeted drug delivery systems. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is broadly used in nanotechnology and delivery of drugs because of some advantages as extended body-residence time, less frequent administrations, the improved stability against proteases and nucleases and also the immunogenicity which is decreased (M.Veronese, Pasut, 2005). In that, particles can remain invisible to phagocytic cells due to the barrier layer which is made by PEGs and it can prevents opsonins adhesion in the blood serum (Owens III, Peppas, 2006). Also reticuloendothelial system (RES) uptake decreases via addition of PEGs to nanoparticles (NPs), so that circulation time increases and passivated surfaces prevent aggregation and NPs association to the tissue proteins reduces, resulting in stealth behavior (Jokerst, Lobovkina, Zare, Gambhir, 2011). The issue of adsorption on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is a subject becoming of exploratory and hypothetical interest. Adsorption in this study was examined by watching the gathering of atoms of the antitumor medication doxorubicin (DOX) by the surface of PEGylated SWCNTs.