Preferred Position and Orientation of Anticancer Drug Cisplatin During Encapsulation Into Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Cisplatin is one of the most widely prescribed chemotherapy drugs to treat different types of cancers. However, this anticancer drug has a number of side effects such as kidney and nerve damages, anaphylactic reactions, hearing loss, nausea, and vomiting that strongly restrict its function. In the present study, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are used as protective drug carriers which can decrease these severe side effects to some extent. Using the hybrid discrete-continuum model in conjunction with Lennard-Jones potential, new semi-analytical expressions in terms of single integrals are given to evaluate van der Waals (vdW) potential energy and interaction force between an offset cisplatin and a SWCNT. In addition, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are conducted to validate the results of such a hybrid approach. The preferred location and orientation of cisplatin while entering SWCNTs are determined. It is shown that the equilibrium condition of the drug may be affected by the radius of nanotube, the orientation of cisplatin, and the distance between the central molecule of the drug (Pt) and the left end of nanotube. Furthermore, the influence of equilibrium condition on the distributions of vdW interactions is investigated.