https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00114-7
Regular Article - Clusters and Nanostructures
Confinement of the antitumoral drug cisplatin inside edge-functionalized carbon nanotubes and its release near lipid membrane
1
Unité de Recherche de Modélisation en Sciences Fondamentales et Didactiques, Equipe de Chimie Théorique, Université de Tunis El Manar, BP 254, 2096, El Manar 2, Tunisia
2
Laboratoire de Nanomédecine, Imagerie et Thérapeutiques, EA4662, UFR Sciences et Techniques, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire et Université de Bourgogne Franche Comté, 16 route de Gray, 25030, Besançon, France
Received:
18
June
2020
Accepted:
23
February
2021
Published online:
15
March
2021
Platinum complexes are active antitumor agents. They are widely used in chemotherapy medication for the treatment of several cancer types. Unfortunately, these drugs present poor stability when administered and have several side effects, damaging healthy cells around the tumor. One way to remedy the damage is to confine drug molecules in carbon cages such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) before delivering them near their target cells. In order to open their ends, the CNTs must be functionalized by oxidation. This leads to the saturation of the carbon dangling bonds with an alcohol functional group, for instance. In this study, molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to assess the influence of CNT’s chemical functional groups (–H, –OH, –COOH) on the retention time and release processes of cisplatin molecules throughout the process of vectorization to a cell membrane.
Supplementary Information The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00114-7) contains supplementary information, which is available to authorized users.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, SIF and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
