Degradation of doxorubicin to non-toxic metabolites using Fe-Ni bimetallic nanoparticles

Contamination of water and soil with Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products (PPCP); although present at very lower concentrations, has raised alarming issues regarding their toxicity to ecosystem. Their mitigation through biological and chemical treatments have been a area of great interest in recent past. One such attempt is made wherein degradation of doxorubicin (DOX); a well known anticancer agent, is explored with Fe-Ni bimetallic nanoparticles (Fe-Ni NP’s). These nanoparticles degrade DOX through chemisorptive exothermic pseudo-multilayer film-diffusion mineralisation process as evident from adsorption and intra-particle mechanisms. The degradation mechanism is established from metabolites formed during its degradation by LC–MS analysis. It is observed that chemical degradation route closely resembles with that of metabolic pathway mediated by aldo-keto reductase (AKR); a family of oxido-reductase enzyme involving ROS and iron-sulphur clusters. The toxicity of degraded DOX solution evaluated against two breast cancer cell lines viz. MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 and a normal cell line HEK-293 revealed that the metabolites are non-toxic in nature. These findings are further corroborated with chemo-informatics studies using Molinspiration Properties Calculator. Formation of oxide layer on the nanoparticle surface evident from XPS analysis that decreases their recycling capacity. Thus, Fe-Ni NP’s are exhibiting properties like a functional mimic of AKR that degrade DOX in an eco-friendly manner.