Cerium oxide@silica core-shell nanocomposite as multimodal platforms for drug release and synergistic anticancer effects

Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeNPs) are among the most promising materials with pH-sensitive redox-activity for biomedical nanotechnologies. CeNPs are known to reduce the toxicity of the chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin (DOX) for normal cells. Here we have proposed and analyzed a new hybrid cerium/silica containing SiNPs@DOX@CeNPs nanocomposite. We showed that the average size of the nanocomposite is 190 nm and it has a spherical shape. The SiNPs@DOX@CeNPs nanocomposite provides effective synergistic anticancer activity of CeNPs with doxorubicin (DOX), as well as selective toxicity against human osteosarcoma (MNNG/HOS) cells in vitro. The SiNPs@DOX@CeNPs nanocomposite may be a good candidate to increase the effectiveness of cancer doxorubicin chemotherapy.