Interaction of Different Divalent Metal Ions with Lipid Bilayer: Impact on the Encapsulation of Doxorubicin by Lipid Bilayer and Lipoplex Mediated Deintercalation

In this article, we investigate the influence of different metal ions (Ca2+, Mg2+, and Zn2+) on binding of an anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) to DMPC bilayer and lipoplex mediated deintercalation of DOX from DOX-DNA complex. Our study reveals that lipid bilayer in the presence of different metal ions displays much higher binding affinity toward DOX than bare lipid bilayer does. Further, this affinity for a particular metal ion increases linearly with metal ion concentration. The steady state and time-resolved fluorescence studies reveal that binding of DOX with lipid bilayer in the presence of different metal ions varies in the order of Ca2+> Mg2+> Zn2+. The rotational relaxation of DOX in the presence of different metal ions takes place in the same order. We explain these phenomena in the light of alteration of the physical properties brought about by metal ions. Moreover, we find that binding pattern of metal ions with lipid head groups influences the intake of DOX in lipid bilayer. We exploit the binding of DOX with bilayer to study the deintercalation of DOX from DOX-DNA complex. We observe that with increase in metal ion concentration the deintercalation increases. Among all metal ions, Ca2+ appears to be most effective in deintercalation compared to other metal ions. The time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy and circular dichroism measurements indicate that in the presence of Ca2+, lipid bilayer offer strongest interaction with DNA while the same is weakest for Zn2+. This explains the highest percentage of deintercalation of DOX from drug DNA complex in the presence of Ca2+. Overall the present study demonstrates a new strategy that binding of drug molecules with lipid bilayer and deintercalation of the same from drug-DNA complex can be tuned by modulation of lipid bilayer with different metal ions and their concentration.