Delivery of anti-cancer and anti-depression doxepin drug by nickel oxide nanoparticles originated from the Cressa nudicaulis plant extract

In this research, the extract of Cressa nudicaulis plant has been used as a natural reducing agent in order to prepare stable nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiO NPs) using an aqueous solution of nickel(ii) nitrate under the sol–gel method. Additionally, NiO NPs were distinguished using FT-IR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy), XRD (X-ray diffraction), FESEM (field-emission scanning electron microscopy), EDS (energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), and UV-Vis (ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy) techniques. The integrated NiO NPs were loaded with doxepin drug as an effective medication for head and neck cancer as well as depression. Then, the ideal loading circumstances such as pH of the medium, response time, and amount of nanoparticles were assessed to attain that pH 6, time 12 h, and nanoparticle amount of 0.02 g are optimal to accomplish the best drug loading of around 68%. The drug release properties of drug-loaded NiO were also investigated at pH 6.5 and 37 °C. This study showed that ∼73% of the loaded drug was released after 80 h. Therefore, the introduced delivery system shows sufficiently long targeted-release properties. Besides, the MTT experiment was utilized to investigate the cytotoxicity of NiO NPs on the human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line Huh-7.