Research Article Anticancer Drug-Incorporated Layered Double Hydroxide Nanohybrids and Their Enhanced Anticancer Therapeutic Efficacy in Combination Cancer Treatment

Copyright © 2014 Tae-Hyun Kim et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. Layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanoparticles have been studied as cellular delivery carriers for anionic anticancer agents. As MTX and 5-FU are clinically utilized anticancer drugs in combination therapy, we aimed to enhance the therapeutic performance with the help of LDH nanoparticles. Method. Anticancer drugs, MTX and 5-FU, and their combination, were incorporated into LDH by reconstruction method. Simply, LDHs were thermally pretreated at 400∘C, and then reacted with drug solution to simultaneously form drug-incorporated LDH. Thus prepared MTX/LDH (ML), 5-FU/LDH (FL), and (MTX + 5-FU)/LDH (MFL) nanohybrids were characterized by X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, thermal analysis, zeta potential measurement, dynamic light scattering, and so forth. The nanohybrids were administrated to the human cervical adenocarcinoma, HeLa cells, in concentration-dependent manner, comparing with drug itself to verify the enhanced therapeutic efficacy.Conclusion. All the nanohybrids successfully accommodated intended drugmolecules in their house-of-card-like structures during reconstruction reaction. It was found that the anticancer efficacy ofMFL nanohybrid was higher tha