Context: Soyasapogenol B (SSB) has been shown to possess hepatoprotective, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic and anticancer activities. The goal of this work is to study the influence of functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) on the biological activity of the loaded soyasapogenol B.

Methods: SSB was prepared by enzymatic hydrolysis of soybean saponin using Aspergillus flavus whole cells. While, the functionalization of MWCNTs was conducted using the adsorption technique in the presence of the modified montmorillonite (mMMT) with cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). In vitro drug release profile, kinetics of release, cellular uptake and cytotoxicity were also investigated. The prepared materials were characterized using: FTIR, particle size distribution analysis and TEM.

Results: The in vitro release and cytotoxicity of the SSB loaded and unloaded samples were carried out using the dialysis bag diffusion technique and sulphorhodamine B (SRB) assay, respectively. The results showed that SSB loaded MWCNTs, mMMT and MWCNTs/mMMT had particle size of 414, 1121 and 412 nm, respectively, and 338, 1071 and 268 nm, for the unloaded ones, respectively. FTIR proved that SSB was successful immobilized onto functionalized MWCNTs.

Conclusions: Successful loading of SSB, as a bioactive material, onto functionalized MWCNTs with modified clay (montmorillonite) using CTAB exhibited very low cytotoxic behavior with human normal melanocyte (HFB-4), breast (MCF-7) and liver (Hep-G2) carcinoma cell lines relative to SSB and doxorubicin standard.