Leucine-coated cobalt ferrite nanoparticles: Synthesis, characterization and potential biomedical applications for drug delivery

This work was primarily focused on the synthesis, characterization and biomedical applications of cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) nanoparticles, which were synthesized by a facile solvothermal method using an amino acid of Leucine (Leu) as the surface coating agents. The morphology, structure and properties of the as-synthesized uncoated and Leu-coated CoFe2O4 nanoparticles were characterized in detail by means of XRD, SEM, TEM, DLS, FTIR, XPS, TGA and SQUID. More importantly, it was found that the Leu-coated CoFe2O4 nanoparticles can be used as the efficient drug delivery with a drug loading capacity of 0.32 mg/mg for doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX), and the loaded DOX demonstrated a sustained and progressive release manner. The in vitro cytotoxicity studies towards the HeLa cells were carried out, and the results indicated that the Leu-coated CoFe2O4 nanoparticles exhibited a relatively high cell viability compared with that of bare CoFe2O4 nanoparticles and the DOX loaded Leu-coated CoFe2O4 nanoparticles presented an obvious cytotoxic effect on HeLa cells.