{"doi":"10.3390/pharmaceutics12100962","title":"Cellular Analysis and Chemotherapeutic Potential of a Bi-Functionalized Halloysite Nanotube","abstract":"The surface of halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) was bifunctionalized with two ligands-folic acid and a fluorochrome. In tandem, this combination should selectively target cancer cells and provide a means for imaging the nanoparticle. Modified bi-functionalized HNTs (bi-HNTs) were then doped with the anti-cancer drug methotrexate. bi-HNTs were characterized and subjected to in vitro tests to assess cellular growth and changes in cellular behavior in three cell lines-colon cancer, osteosarcoma, and a pre-osteoblast cell line (MC3T3-E1). Cell viability, proliferation, and cell uptake efficiency were assessed. The bi-HNTs showed cytocompatibility at a wide range of concentrations. Compared with regular-sized HNTs, reduced HNTs (~6 microns) were taken up by cells in more significant amounts, but increased cytotoxicity lead to apoptosis. Multi-photon images confirmed the intracellular location of bi-HNTs, and the method of cell entry was mainly through caveolae-mediated endocytosis. The bi-HNTs showed a high drug loading efficiency with methotrexate and a prolonged period of release. Most importantly, bi-HNTs were designed as a drug carrier to target cancer cells specifically, and imaging data shows that non-cancerous cells were unaffected after exposure to MTX-doped bi-HNTs. All data provide support for our nanoparticle design as a mechanism to selectively target cancer cells and significantly reduce the side-effects caused by off-targeting of anti-cancer drugs.","journal":"Pharmaceutics","year":2020,"id":101847,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":27,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9561,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":426542,"name":"Ahmed Humayun","orcid":"0000-0002-6139-7609","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381020,"name":"Teresa A. Murray","orcid":"0000-0002-8857-154X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":498599,"name":"Benjamin S. Kemp","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":497938,"name":"A. McFarland","orcid":"0000-0003-4572-2376","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":497939,"name":"Xuan Liu","orcid":"0000-0003-0866-0823","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238353,"name":"David K. Mills","orcid":"0000-0002-6489-4520","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238352,"name":"Yangyang Luo","orcid":"0000-0003-3441-6621","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":41,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:40:22.678835Z","pmid":"33066206","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}