Synthesis of High-Precision Sub-Micron CaCO<sub>3</sub> Anticancer Drug Carriers from Coral Remains

oleh: Pin-Han Chen, Wei-Sheng Chen, Szu-An Chen, Wei-Chung Chen

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2024-02-01

Deskripsi

Calcium carbonate (CaCO<sub>3</sub>) particles have attracted increasing attention as a promising material for drug delivery systems. In this study, coral remains were utilized as a raw material for a novel drug carrier. A series of pre-treatment and parameter experiments were conducted to synthesize sub-micron spherical CaCO<sub>3</sub> particles. The CaCO<sub>3</sub> particles exhibited uniform size distribution, with the minimum mean size being only 344 nm. The effects on the CaCO<sub>3</sub> crystal phases and particle sizes were also discussed in this study. Drug loading experiments were also conducted to assess the feasibility of the CaCO<sub>3</sub> drug carrier. We loaded TRITC-Dextran into CaCO<sub>3</sub> particles for the simulation experiments. The loading capacity reached up to 9.6 wt.%, which was as high as common drug carriers such as liposomes. In this study, we aimed not only to tackle the local environmental issues caused by coral remains, but also to synthesize a suitable drug carrier for cancer therapy using the outstanding properties and low cost of CaCO<sub>3</sub>.