No abstract

We report the synthesis of Fe3O4@mSiO2 nanostructures of different meso-silica (mSiO2) shell thickness, their biocompatibility and behaviors for loading and release of a model drug ibuprofen. The composite nanostructures have superparamagnetic magnetite cores of 208 nm average size and meso-silica shells of 15 to 40 nm thickness. A modified Stöber method was used to grow the meso-silica shells over the hydrothermally grown monodispersed magnetite particles. The composite nanoparticles show very promising drug holding and releasing behaviors, which depend on the thickness of meso-silica shell. The biocompatibility of the meso-silica-coated and uncoated magnetite nanoparticles was tested through cytotoxicity assay on breast cancer (MCF-7), ovarian cancer (SKOV3), normal human lung fibroblasts MRC-5, and IMR-90 cells. The high drug holding capacity and reasonable biocompatibility of the nanostructures make them ideal agents for targeted drug delivery applications in human body.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-015-0920-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) of different sizes were synthesized by solvothermal process maintaining their stoichiometric composition and unique structural phase. Utilizing hydrated ferric (III) chloride as unique iron precursor, it was possible to synthesize sub-micrometric magnetite clusters of sizes in between 208 and 381 nm in controlled manner by controlling the concentration of sodium acetate in the reaction mixture. The sub-micrometer size nanoclusters consist of nanometric primary particles of 19 -26.3 nm average size. The concentration of sodium acetate in reaction solution seen to control the final size of primary MNPs, and hence the size of sub-micrometric magnetite nanoclusters. All the samples revealed their superparamagnetic behavior with saturation magnetization (M s ) values in between 74.3 and 77.4 emu/g. The coercivity of the nanoclusters depends both on the size of the primary particles and impurity present in them. The mechanisms of formation and size control of the MNPs have been discussed.

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.We report the synthesis of Fe3O4@mSiO2 nanostructures of different meso-silica (mSiO2) shell thickness, their biocompatibility and behaviors for loading and release of a model drug ibuprofen. The composite nanostructures have superparamagnetic magnetite cores of 208 nm average size and meso-silica shells of 15 to 40 nm thickness. A modified Stöber method was used to grow the meso-silica shells over the hydrothermally grown monodispersed magnetite particles. The composite nanoparticles show very promising drug holding and releasing behaviors, which depend on the thickness of meso-silica shell. The biocompatibility of the meso-silica-coated and uncoated magnetite nanoparticles was tested through cytotoxicity assay on breast cancer (MCF-7), ovarian cancer (SKOV3), normal human lung fibroblasts MRC-5, and IMR-90 cells. The high drug holding capacity and reasonable biocompatibility of the nanostructures make them ideal agents for targeted drug delivery applications in human body.