Control of doxorubicin release from magnetic Poly(dl-lactide-co-glycolide) nanoparticles by application of a non-permanent magnetic field

This work studied the effect of the application time of a non-permanent magnetic field on the rate of drug release from iron oxide polymeric nanoparticles. Magnetically responsive doxorubicin loaded poly(d-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) nanoparticles were synthetized by the o/w solvent extraction/evaporation method and characterized. The produced particles show spherical shapes exhibiting a size between 200 and 400 nm, a drug loading of 3.6 % (w/w) and an iron concentration of 20.7 % (w/w). Cell cytotoxicity tests showed that unloaded magnetic PLGA nanoparticles were nontoxic. Concerning the therapeutic activity, doxorubicin-loaded magnetic particles cause a remarkable enhancement of the cell inhibition rates compared to their non-magnetic counterparts (40 against 7 % of dead cells). In vitro drug release studies performed under a non-permanent magnetic field show that the application time and the on/off cycle duration have a great influence with respect to the final amount and to the rate of drug release. The final amount and the rate of doxorubicin released increase with the time of field application reaching higher values for a higher number of pulses with a lower duration. Doxorubicin release mechanism has shown to be governed by Fickian diffusion in the absence of a magnetic field while in the presence of a magnetic field some controlled relaxation polymer chains might also be present. The results show that the drug release rate from magnetic PLGA nanoparticles can be modulated through the application time and the on/off cycles duration of a non-permanent magnetic field.