According to World Health Organization (WHO), people are dying due to cancer disease around the world and which is not highly desirable. Survey says, about 11 million people, 60% people die due to cancer disease and 40% people diagnosed [1]. Previously, Cancer treatment was handled using chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy (PDT), photothermal therapy (PTT), radiation therapy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that enables impotence in killing cancer cells and also simultaneously protects the organs which fits the problems [2]. Due to their specificity towards cancer cells, currently available chemotherapy pills can also cause extensive damage to non-cancerous cells [3]. The high concentration drugs in the low molecular weight capsules are essential to reveal that they induce more toxicity to most cancer cells and undesirable side results like hair loss, bone marrow suppression and many more [4]. Similarly, conjugating the drug delivery system to use specific ligands closer to most tumor cells were multiplied the antitumor efficacy by increasing the delivery system focused on tumor sites with minimal side effects in healthy tissue [5–6]. The severe clinical dilemma of treating metastatic triple-negative breast cancer with a single or combination of medicines has sparked expectations regarding nanomaterials-based drugs like ciprofloxacin as a viable new therapy option. Ciprofloxacin is a "lysosomal poison" that operates on lysosomal membranes like a detergent. Although the capacity of cipro to acidify cytoplasm has not been tested, there is indirect evidence that it may have such an impact [7–9].
Many cancer medications linked to inorganic NPs have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as one of the primary nanomedicine additions. As part of cancer treatment, a variety of NPs, such as iron oxide NPs, titanium dioxide NPs, cerium oxide NPs, zinc oxide NPs, copper oxide NPs, etc., have been examined for their precise cytotoxicity against a variety of cancer cells [10–11]. These nanoparticles are represented as effective tools for anticancer therapy because each one of them has distinctive properties that set it apart from other applications. In this regard, a system based on ZnO nanostructures has been investigated as a modern material for molecular imaging to target cancer cells for drug administration at certain areas [12–14]. Due to its capacity to boost cellular concentration, enhance water solubility, and increase bioavailability while precisely targeting tumour cells and tissues, the administration of phytochemicals via nanocarriers has been explored. A lot of study has been done to assess their job based on the earlier findings. In one of observations led to a comparison investigation of the PEG/GO/HAP nanocomposite approach and the manufacture of crystalline hydroxyapatite (HAP) nanorods to examine the structure, shape, and bioactivity of the materials [15]. MCF-7 cancer cells were the target of anticancer activities, according to Palanivel Sathishkumar et al. ZnO-quercetin nanocomposite will be used as an efficient nano-drug delivery method in 2021 [16]. Their results have been compared with normal cell line 3T3-L1 cells.
From previous research, it was noted that there were a few articles that discussed the toxicity of ZnO nanoparticles to aquatic creatures. For therapeutic uses, the biocompatibility of the created nanodrug must be examined [17–20]. The biological activity of green synthesised ZnO NPs coated chitosan loaded with PTX for assessing pharmacologic impact on breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) was explored by Maedeh Akbarian et al. in 2019. To examine the adverse effects Human foreskin fibroblast cell line has been utilised to analyse the activity of developed drug-loaded nanomaterials [21]. Different nanosize ranges (200 nm) of PLGA-based superparamagnetic NPs loaded with DTX to target breast cancer cells as effective drug delivery system. In-vitro cytotoxicity with drug formulation towards MCF-7 breast cancer cells and internalisation effectiveness were examined [22].
There were several reported articles based on ZnO based nanomaterials which stated their results towards the anticancer activities [23–24]. It was also noticed that ZnO NPs have excellent properties in which they promote their behaviour in antimicrobial inhibitions [25–26]. Also, ZnO NPs indicated to address the harmfulness against microorganisms and least impact on human cells [27–28] and its cytotoxic behaviour was tested to have impact on malignancy cells [29]. Mohamed F. Al-Ajmi et al. (2015) reported potential target towards cancer cell line (MCF-7) using 5-fluorouracil encapsulation on ZnO NPs in one of the experiments. They have stated that, ZnO NPs couldn’t serve as effective drug carrier deliver 5-Fluorouracil into cancer cells [30].
Seyed-Behnam G et al., (2020) [31] reported on chitosan (CS) coated ZnO nanoparticles for enhancing curcurmin behaviour for targeting breast cancer cells. In which succinic anhydride was used to chemically modify CS-ZnO particles by introducing activated functional groups for CUR conjugation. Their experimental results explored the property to enabled pH-sensitive release profile for superior anticancer profile for CUR-CS-ZnO. The study revealed excellent behaviour was expelled towards breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) and the results were compared with HEK293 normal cells indicating effective cell viability over the drugs with various applicability.
To overcome this scenario, curcumin (CUR) functionalized pH-sensitive delivery system composed of ZnO and CS was designed. It helped in assisting to reduce the other negative domanial factors such as lower damage healthy tissues, reduced side effects and enhanced patient comfort. In considering the factors, a study was reported by modifying N-succinyl CS consisting of -COOH group that helps to bind with ZnO NPs for increasing biological activities.
There was also a possibility of drugs which affect the structural behaviour of nanomaterials [32] to overcome that metal-based drug carriers have been observed in previously reported articles [33–34]. But metal needs lipophilic behaviour for specific cancer targeting, for that molecular behaviour of the metals has been studied to meet the requirements of drug resistance. On considering the literature of reported articles, ZnO nanoparticles and functionalized ZnO nanomaterials [35–37] were concentrated on targeting towards breast cancer cells.
On observation with previously reported studies, ZnO NPs synthesized using plant seed extract are tested for their breast cancer antiproliferative behaviour with other biological activities [21, 38–39]. No prior research using drug carriers based on the ciprofloxacin-ZnO nanostructure have been published. Therefore, creating new, effective anticancer medicines based on recognised pharmaceuticals rather than any other untested substances may substantially speed up the process of using them in clinics [40–41].
Therefore, only a few numbers of NPs with appropriate structural sizes may pass through the membrane and kill cells [42–44]. This result might be explained by the NPs accumulating and settling at the tube's bottom due to improper medium diffusion [45]. So, these are some of the factors which influence the biological activities [46–47]. From the literature we could infer from that, in order to successfully create a drug delivery system without harming the nanostructures, ciprofloxacin-loaded ZnO nanostructural rods must be conjugated. In this study, a drug delivery system composed ZnO structural rods and ciprofloxacin was developed to treat breast cancer cells and its physicochemical characteristics were assessed. Finally, a healthy cell line was used to establish the biocompatibility of ZnO-ciprofloxacin. The structural integrity of the drug-loaded nanomaterial was examined after it was removed to confirm the presence of nanostructures. Ciprofloxacin-loaded ZnO nanostructural rods have been compared for their antibacterial effects, and these rods have also been investigated. Here we proposed the potential ability of ZnO nanostructural rods and ciprofloxacin towards the breast cancer cell line.