Target‑specific delivery of oxaliplatin to HER2‑positive gastric cancer cells in vivo using oxaliplatin‑au‑fe3o4‑herceptin nanoparticles

Gastric cancer is the fourth most common malignancy globally. In order to decrease the dosage and side effects of conventional chemotherapy, and achieve improved benefits from molecular targeted therapy, novel drug delivery systems were developed in the present study. Oxaliplatin‑Au‑Fe3O4‑Herceptin® acts as a dual‑functional nanoparticles (NPs) conjugate and possesses the capability of human epithelial growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) targeting and oxaliplatin delivery. The 8‑20 nm Au‑Fe3O4 were synthesized by decomposing iron pentacarbonyl on the surfaces of Au NPs in the presence of oleic acid and oleylamine. Following being coated with polyethylene glycol, the NPs possessed a ζ‑potential of 13.8±1.6 mV and were demonstrated to exhibit no cytotoxicity when Fe concentration is <100 µg/ml via an MTS assay. Mass spectrometry analysis detected a peak at m/z 148,000, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance indicated peaks at δ 3.51 (8.00H, s, 3‑H), 2.97‑3.02 (3.80H, t, 2‑H) and 2.72‑2.76 (3.72H, t, 1‑H) following successful loading with Herceptin and oxaliplatin probes. A drug release assay via dialysis cassettes demonstrated that 25% of the oxaliplatin was released at pH 8.0, however >58% was released at pH 6.0 following 4 h incubation, indicating its pH‑dependent release characteristic. The active targeting feature of oxaliplatin‑Au‑Fe3O4‑Herceptin was verified in a subcutaneous xenograft mouse model containing SGC‑7901 cells via detecting aggregated low intensity in T2‑weighted magnetic resonance imaging, which was further confirmed by immunohistochemistry. Therefore, oxaliplatin‑Au‑Fe3O4‑Herceptin is a promising multifunctional platform for simultaneous magnetic traceable and HER2 targeted chemotherapy for gastric cancer.