Biopolymers coated superparamagnetic Nickel Ferrites: Enhanced biocompatibility and MR imaging probe for breast cancer

•A single combinatorial system for the promising application of biopolymers coated NiFe2O4 cores.•Immobilization of a thin layer of three different biopolymers via a simple approach.•Excellent MR contrast enhancement and targeting of MCF-7 without any further vectorization.

We report evidence for the promising application of bovine serum albumin (BSA), chitosan (CS) or carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) coated NiFe2O4 cores for improved biocompatibility and enhanced T2 relaxivity, through a single combinatorial approach. Pure nickel-ferrite nano cores (NFs) successfully synthesized by thermolysis, were immobilize with BSA, CS or CMC layer employing a simple cross linking procedure to avoid any significant influence of these biopolymers on the morphology and crystal structure of the cores. Phase, morphology, magnetic hysteresis and surface chemistry were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy.The preliminary haemolysis and cell viability experiments show that biopolymers conjugation mitigates the haemolytic effect of the NFs on erythrocytes as the haemolytic index is less than 2% and cell viability is up to 100%, when normalized with the nontreated cells. The relaxivity value of coated NFs is 351±2.6 when compared to 84±0.22 of NFs without biopolymer conjugation. The results demonstrate that BSA, CS or CMC covering on NFs provide a single combinatorial approach to improve the biocompatibility and enhance the relaxivity value. Thus addressing the current challenge of the same with very good contrast for targeting MCF-7 without any further vectorization.