Objectives The objective of this study was to investigate the efficiency of uptake of PEGylated polylactide-co-gycolide (PLGA) nanoparticles by breast cancer cells. Methods Nanoparticles of PLGA containing various amounts of polyethylene glycol (PEG, 5%–15%) were prepared using a double emulsion solvent evaporation method. The nanoparticles were loaded with coumarin-6 (C6) as a fluorescence marker. The particles were characterized for surface morphology, particle size, zeta potential, and for cellular uptake by 4T1 murine breast cancer cells. Key findings Irrespective of the amount of PEG, all formulations yielded smooth spherical particles. However, a comparison of the particle size of various formulations showed bimodal distribution of particles. Each formulation was later passed through a 1.2 μm filter to obtain target size particles (114–335 nm) with zeta potentials ranging from −2.8 mV to −26.2 mV. While PLGA-PEG di-block (15% PEG) formulation showed significantly higher 4T1 cellular uptake than all other formulations, there was no statistical difference in cellular uptake among PLGA, PLGA-PEG-PLGA tri-block (10% PEG), PLGA-PEG di-block (5% PEG) and PLGA-PEG di-block (10% PEG) nanoparticles. Conclusion These preliminary findings indicated that the nanoparticle formulation prepared with 15% PEGylated PLGA showed maximum cellular uptake due to it having the smallest particle size and lowest zeta potential.

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These results clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that the amifostine nanoparticles developed in our laboratory provides significant protection from acute whole-body gamma irradiation injury in mice.