Use of biologically modified gold nanoparticles (GNPs) as molecular vehicle to ferry potential anti-cancer drug berberine hydrochloride (BHC) using folic acid (FA) as targeting molecule is reported in this work. A tropical fruit peel, Trapa bispinosa is used to fabricate highly monodispersed GNPs, passivated with essential functional groups which were used as linkers to attach FA and BHC via amide linkage. Flocculation Parameter (FP) of biologically synthesized GNPs was calculated under different salt concentrations which were found to be very ideal under a physiological condition. Various statistical models were used to find drug release profile out of which Higuchi was found to be the most ideal. GNP-FA-BHC complexes were found to be active against folic acid expressing HeLa cells.
Keywords: Berberine; Drug delivery; Drug release; Folic acid; Nanoparticle; Targeting.
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