Development of Cockleshell (Anadara granosa) Derived CaCO₃ Nanoparticle for Doxorubicin Delivery

Abstract

Despite the progress made in cancer treatment, difficulties are encountered with tumour targeting due to cancer structural complexity. The synthesis of homogenous calcium carbonate (CaCO3) nanoparticles could be a carrier for doxorubicin in the management of bone cancer due to its osteoconductive and physicochemical properties with simple synthesis method to produce large scale. Among the nanocarriers, CaCO3 nanoparticles have exhibited promising potential as targeting drug nanocarrier. The aim of this study is to synthesised and characterised doxorubicin-conjugated CaCO3 nanoparticle (CS-CaCO3NP-DOX), using a simple precipitation and mechanical approach to synthesise homogeneous CaCO3NP from cockleshell. The oven-dried nanoparticles were further characterised for its physicochemical properties before and after conjugating with doxorubicin. A homogenous aragonite, spherical, porous nanocarrier was obtained with a mean diameter of 24.9 nm and zeta potential of-21 mV. The energy dispersion X-ray analysis revealed high proportion of calcium as a major element in the nanoparticle. The spectrum peak suggests little alteration upon incorporation of doxorubicin. Higher loading content and encapsulation efficiency were recorded with CS-CaCO3NP. These properties underscore the potential of CS-CaCO3NP in the delivery of doxorubicin, thus giving it a high potential for application in the delivery of the anticancer in the management of cancers.

Cockle Shell-Derived Calcium Carbonate (Aragonite) Nanoparticles: A Dynamite to Nanomedicine

“…It also possess a peculiar property of low thermodynamic stability thus, its size and shape are in concordance with the method and conditions of laboratory preparations [11]. In addition, numerous studies in recent years, were carried out on its toxicity to prove its wide safety margin both in vivo and in vitro [10,[16][17][18][19][20] A significant number of publications have appeared in recent years documenting the application of CSCaCO 3 NP of aragonite polymorph nanoparticles on different models of animals and cell lines for various therapeutic purposes with regard to their synthesis, functionalization, and both in vitro and in vivo toxicity studies [4,15,16,19,21,22]. Among all available documented literature on CSCaCO 3 NP with unique features so far, no review has been documented on the overview of this very nanoparticle of cockle shell biogenic origin.…”

“…Over the past few decades, nanotechnology has gained tremendous attention with good future prospects focusing more on nanoparticles, which is basically the bedrock of nanotechnology [1,13,17,[23][24][25][26]. Nanotechnology is an important aspect of science that focuses on the continuous designing and manipulation of materials (atoms and molecules) to produce structures at the nanometre scale size ranging from smaller nanometre to 100 nm with unaltered initial unique features of the material used, with broad nanoscale schemes in clinical applications for therapeutic, protective as well as diagnostic purposes [8,27].…”

“…Aragonite is found naturally in almost all mollusc shells as well as the endoskeleton of cold and warm water corals [6]. The porous nature of the cockle shell polymorphic CaCO 3 nanocarrier derived from aragonite, enables it to incorporate large amounts of drugs thereby yielding a good encapsulation efficiency to boost the drug's bioavailability [17]. Aragonite is less stable than calcite and it is a high-pressure polymorph [91].…”

“…This clearly explains why water corals and sea shells are liable and applicable in nanotechnology. The increase in the use of nanoparticles for biomedical applications encourages the continuous synthesis and development of the aragonite polymorphic form cockle shell-derived calcium carbonate nanoparticle (CSCaCO 3 NP) of biogenic origin for a targeted drug delivery system [17]. This marine species product is known to possess good quality and pure crystalline CaCO 3 in purely aragonite polymorph form [77,78] more so, heavy metals such as arsenic, lead or mercury are absent in the shells [12,106,107].…”

“…In addition, the biological safety evaluation of porous CSCaCO 3 NP on hFOB 1.19 cells showed that CSCaCO 3 NP could be a promising drug nanocarrier with wide safety level [16,25]. Danmaigoro et al [17] and Ghafar et al [106] claimed that CaCO 3 NP of biogenic cockle shell origin have relatively large loading content capacity, encapsulation efficiency, functional group endings for electrostatic ion bonds (hydroxyl and carboxylic groups), surface structural porosity, higher surface area and response to pH degradation which explains its uniqueness as a novel inorganic compound for nanocarrier application. It was reported to exhibit great promising potential as a drug nanocarrier, these have become possible due to its immense biomedical utilizations attributable to its biocompatibility, osteoconductivity, pH sensitivity, hydrophilic nature as well as slow biodegradability [9].…”