Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials https://doi.org/10.1007/s10904-020-01653-z The Efect of Calcination Temperature on the Anticancer Activity of CaFe 2 O 4 @PVA Nanocarriers: Photodynamic Therapy and Drug Delivery Study Ehsan Naderi 1  · Mozhgan Aghajanzadeh 2  · Mostafa Zamani 2  · Ali Sharaf 3  · Mahmoud Naseri 1  · Hossein Danafar 2,4 Received: 3 May 2020 / Accepted: 27 June 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract In this project, Calcium ferrite/polyvinyl alcohol (CaFe 2 O 4 @PVA) nanocarriers were prepared by a thermal-treatment method at three diferent temperatures (773, 823 and 923 K). The nanocarriers were used as drug delivery systems (DDS) to deliver curcumin (CUR) and were utilized as a new structure for photo dynamic therapy (PDT). Drug loading and release study of CUR were performed and it was observed that nanocarriers showed a pH dependent drug release behavior. MTT assay, Hemolysis assay and lethal dose test were applied to determine the cytotoxicity of nanocarriers. These tests indicated that synthesized nanocarriers can be considered as nontoxic. Also, the photodynamic therapy experiments were performed by two groups: one group of cells were treated by diferent concentrations of nanocarriers without light and the other group were exposed to light. Then, the efcacy of PDT was determined by MTT and it was revealed that whenever nanocarriers were exposed to light the cytotoxicity was signifcantly high. Therefore, it was revealed that these nanocarriers are suitable to be utilized as a drug delivery systems and photo dynamic therapy agent. Graphic Abstract Keywords Photodynamic therapy · Calcium · Curcumin · Magnetite · PVA · Drug delivery 1 Introduction Nowadays treatment of breast cancer become a major chal- lenge for scientist, as there are some barriers like high inter- stitial pressures and heterogeneous vascular supply in tumor tissues can prevents penetration of drugs into tumor. There- fore, drug delivery systems would be considered as a good option for solving these problems [1–4]. In recent years, nano particles has been highly utilized due to their ability to increase efciency of drug delivery, increase water solu- bility, improve therapeutic index and bioavailability, apply as diagnostic agent and decrease systemic toxicity of drug. * Mahmoud Naseri mahmoud.naseri55@gmail.com * Hossein Danafar danafar@zums.ac.ir 1 Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Malayer University, Malayer 95863-65719, Iran 2 Department of Pharmaceutical Biomaterials, School of Pharmacy, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Pharmacy, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran 4 Zanjan Pharmaceutical Nanotechnology Research Center, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran