title: Folic acid-conjugated soybean protein-based nanoparticles mediate efficient antitumor ability in vitro.
abstract: In this study, soy protein isolate was hydrolyzed by compound enzymes to give aqueous soy protein with low molecular weights. Folic acid modified and free soy protein nanoparticles were successfully prepared by a desolvation method as target-specific drug delivery, respectively. Ultraviolet spectrophotometry demonstrated that folic acid was successfully grafted onto soy protein. The shape and size of folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles were detected by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscope, and dynamic light scattering. In addition, a series of characteristics including kinetic stability, pH stability, and time stability were also performed. Doxorubicin was successfully loaded into folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles, and the encapsulation and loading efficiencies were 96.7% and 23%, respectively. Doxorubicin-loaded folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles exhibited faster drug release rate than soy protein nanoparticles in PBS solution (pH = 5). The tumor penetration and antitumor experiments were done using three-dimensional multicellular tumor spheroids as the in vitro model. The results proved that folic acid modified soy protein nanoparticles display higher penetration and accumulation than soy protein nanoparticles, therefore possessing efficient growth inhibitory ability against multicellular tumor spheroids.
authors.affiliation: Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, School of Life Science, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Weijing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, School of Life Science, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zha
authors.affiliation: Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, School of Life Science, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, School of Life Science, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, School of Life Science, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Engineering Research Center for Biomedical Materials, School of Life Science, Anhui University, Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Rupei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tang
keywords: Soybean protein; antitumor; folic acid; nanoparticles