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. 2018 Jan 1;8(1):256–276. doi: 10.7150/thno.22764

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Synthesis and characterization of lipid-coated core-shell nanoparticles. (A) A schematic illustration of the design of multimodal FA-EuCF-DTG core-shell nanoparticles is presented. (B) TEM images of nanoparticles, (Bi) PCL-DTG (without EuCF) nanoparticles, (Bii) FA-functionalized PCL-DTG (without EuCF) nanoparticles, (Biii) EuCF-DTG nanoparticles, and (Biv) FA-EuCF-DTG nanoparticles. The lipid layers (average thickness of ~15 nm) appeared as a solid corona around the “hard” PCL matrix. EuCF nanocrystals (red arrows) appear as crystalline hexagonal-shaped monodispersed structures in the PCL matrix. (C) Characterization of the size distribution of EuCF-DTG nanoparticles by AFM. (Ci) AFM topographic distribution of EuCF-DTG nanoparticles and, (Cii) a corresponding 3D view. (D) X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) patterns of EuCF and EuCF-DTG nanoparticles. (E) Evaluation of the magnetic properties of the nanoparticles by magnetic-hysteresis (M-H) curves measurements using SQUID. Data are recorded at 300 K. (F) Hydrodynamic size distribution of nanoparticles determined by dynamic light scattering (average nanoparticle size of ~253 nm) and (G) in vitro release profiles of DTG in PBS (pH 7.3) at 37±0.5 °C (stability test in Figure S1 and 1H-NMR and FTIR available in Figure S2).