Glutathione and acid dual-responsive nanomaterials loaded with methotrexate and magnolol for triple-negative breast cancer treatment

In this study, we designed and synthesised MTX and PEG‒grafted chitosan copolymer nanoparticles (PsCM) to load MAG. We generated MAG@PsCM nanoparticles according to the effective ratio of dual drugs of 1:2.5, achieving 3.73% and 8.95% drug loading for MTX and MAG, respectively. Drug efficiency experiments were conducted on MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells, and the results showed that when MTX was used alone, the tumour cell survival rate was 43.66 ± 1.77%and when low-dose MAG and MTX were used in combination, the survival rate of tumour cells was significantly reduced to 29.82% ± 2.22%. The nanoparticles enhanced the synergistic tumour therapeutic effect of the two drugs with the cell survival rate was 21.94 ± 1.43%, significantly lower compared with the free drugs. MAG@PsCM nanoparticles were significantly taken up by cells at 3, 6 and 12 h, and the total amount taken up increased significantly with time.