Abstract
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Everolimus (Eve) was observed to upregulate the expression of phosphatase and tensin homolog and microRNA-4328 and inhibits the proliferation and migration of A549 cells. In the present study, a new nanocarrier based on composite containing chitosan (CS), carbon nanotubes (CNT) and ordered mesoporous (OMC) was used to load the anticancer drug everolimus (EVE). The existence of EVE on CNT/OMC/CS nanocarrier is confirmed by FE-SEM images, Raman, UV-Vis, FT-IR, BET and TGA analyses. The results showed that the introduction of CS improved the drug loading by 89.4% at pH 7.0, time 2 h and EVE to CNT/OMC/CS ratio of 1.5. Moreover, release study of EVE showed that 15.2% of EVE is released from EVE@CNT/OMC/CS at pH=7.4 for 15 h, while 78.9% of EVE is released at pH = 4.5. After 25 h, 16.8% and 88.0% of EVE were released at pH 7.4 and 4.5, respectively. Based on the MTT assay results, CNT/OMC/CS exhibited negligible cytotoxicity and good compatibility on the A549 lung cancer cell line. The cytotoxicity of the EVE@CNT/OMC/CS (IC50 of ~9 μg/mL) on the A549 cell line was higher as compared to free Eve drug (IC50 of ~13 μg/mL) after 48 h exposure time. All the data confirmed the synergistic effect of EVE in combination with CNT/OMC/CS could serve as an ideal candidate in treating lung cancer.