Many nanoscale drug delivery systems have been evaluated for their excellent properties, such as carbon nanotubes; however, due to their hydrophobic nature, surface modification or functionalization is the major step to prepare a biocompatible and well-dispersed multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in biological fluids. This study aims to noncovalently functionalize MWCNT with chitosan to deliver curcumin to liver cancer cell lines and to investigate their in vitro cell cytotoxicity and antioxidant activity. The conjugation between chitosan, MWCNT, and curcumin was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area, pore size analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. It was found that curcumin-chitosan- MWCNT had the highest entrapment efficiency of 99.1%. The average surface area of curcumin-chitosan-MWCNT was 52.73 m2/g, which showed more than 80% antioxidant activity for all used concentrations using 2,2-Diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl and 2,2′ azinobis, 3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid methods. The IC 50 of curcumin-chitosan- MWCNT used on the Hep G2 liver cell line was 43.62 μg/ml, while it was 227.6 μg/ml when used on fibroblast. In conclusion, the combination of curcumin, chitosan, and MWCNT showed a considerable reduction in cancer cell viability, and curcumin-chitosan-MWCNT can be proposed as a biocompatible carrier for liver cancer treatment.
Key words: Curcumin; Chitosan, Carbon Nanotubes, drug delivery system, Nanotechnology, MWCNT
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