Role of Hydrotropes in Sparingly Soluble Drug Solubilization: Insight from a Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Experimental Perspectives

Drug molecules' therapeutic efficacy depends on their bioavailability and solubility. But more than 70% of the formulated drug molecules show limited effectiveness due to low water solubility. Thus, the water solubility enhancement technique of drug molecules becomes the need of time. One such way is hydrotropy. The solubilizing agent of a hydrophobic molecule is generally referred to as a hydrotrope, and this phenomenon is termed hydrotropy. This method has high industrial demand, as hydrotropes are noninflammable, readily available, environmentally friendly, quickly recovered, cost-effective, and not involved in solid emulsification. The endless importance of hydrotropes in industry (especially in the pharmaceutical industry) motivated us to prepare a feature article with a clear introduction, detailed mechanistic insights into the hydrotropic solubilization of drug molecules, applications in pharma industries, and some future directions of this technique. Thus, we believe that this feature article will become an adequate manual for the pharmaceutical researchers who want to explore all of the past perspectives of the hydrotropic action of hydrotropes in pharmaceutics.

Breast Cancer Targeted Treatment Strategies: Promising Nanocarrier Approaches

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer that causes death among women worldwide. Incidence of breast cancer is increasing worldwide, and the age at which breast cancer develops has shifted from 50- 70 years to 30-40 years. Chemotherapy is the most commonly used effective treatment strategy to combat breast cancer. However, one of the major drawbacks is low selective site-specificity and the consequent toxic insult to normal healthy cells. The nanocarrier system is consistently utilised to minimise the various limitations involved in the conventional treatment of breast cancer. The nanocarrier based targeted drug delivery system provides better bioavailability, prolonged circulation with an effective accumulation of drugs at the tumour site either by active or passive drug targeting. Active targeting has been achieved by receptor/protein anchoring and externally guided magnetic nanocarriers, whereas passive targeting accomplished by employing the access to the tunnel via leaky tumour vasculature, utilising the tumour microenvironment, because the nanocarrier systems can reduce the toxicity to normal cells. As of now a few nanocarrier systems have been approved by FDA, and various nanoformulations are in the pipeline at the preclinical and clinical development for targeting breast cancer; among them, polymeric micelles, microemulsions, magnetic microemulsions, liposomes, dendrimers, carbon nanotubes, and magnetic Nanoparticles (NPs) are the most common. The current review highlights the active and passive targeting potential of nanocarriers in breast cancer and discusses their role in targeting breast cancer without affecting normal healthy cells.

Co-delivery of paclitaxel and gemcitabine via a self-assembling nanoparticle for targeted treatment of breast cancer

Multi-functional nanoparticles can be used to improve the treatment index and reduce side effects of anti-tumor drugs. Herein, we developed a kind of multi-functional and highly biocompatible nanoparticle (NP) loaded with folic acid (FA), paclitaxel (PTX) and gemcitabine (GEM) via self-assembly to target cancer cells. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results showed that multi-functional FA targeting nanoparticles (MF-FA NPs) exhibited spherical morphology and favorable structural stability in aqueous solution. In addition, NPs (MF-FA NPs and MF NPs) exhibited comparable proliferation inhibition to breast cancer cell 4T1 compared with the pure drug. In in vivo antitumor studies, NPs showed an obviously enhanced anti-tumor efficacy compared with the pure drug. Furthermore, MF-FA NPs displayed higher tumor growth inhibition than MF NPs due to the specific targeting of FA to cancer cells. Consequently, the novel MF-FA NPs could be used as a potential chemotherapeutic formulation for breast cancer therapy.

Preparation of MF-FA nanoparticles and the release behavior of drugs in tumor cells.

Facile Strategy Enabling Both High Loading and High Release Amounts of the Water-Insoluble Drug Clofazimine Using Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles

The use of nanocarriers to deliver poorly soluble drugs to the sites of diseases is an attractive and general method, and mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are increasingly being used as carriers. However, both loading a large amount of drugs into the pores and still being able to release the drug is a challenge. In this paper, we demonstrate a general strategy based on a companion molecule that chaperones the drug into the pores and also aids it in escaping. A common related strategy is to use a miscible co-solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), but although loading may be efficient in DMSO, this co-solvent frequently diffuses into an aqueous environment, leaving the drug behind. We demonstrate the method by using acetophenone (AP), an FDA-approved food additive as the chaperone for clofazimine (CFZ), a water-insoluble antibiotic used to treat leprosy and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. AP enables a high amount of CFZ cargo into the MSNs and also carries CFZ cargo out from the MSNs effectively when they are in an aqueous biorelevant environment. The amount of loading and the CFZ release efficiency from MSNs were optimized; 4.5 times more CFZ was loaded in MSNs with AP than that with DMSO and 2300 times more CFZ was released than that without the assistance of the AP. In vitro treatment of macrophages infected by Mycobacterium tuberculosis with the optimized CFZ-loaded MSNs killed the bacteria in the cells in a dose-dependent manner. These studies demonstrate a highly efficient method for loading nanoparticles with water-insoluble drug molecules and the efficacy of the nanoparticles in delivering drugs into eukaryotic cells in aqueous media.

Design, synthesis and 3D QSAR based pharmacophore study of novel imatinib analogs as antitumor-apoptotic agents

AIM

Imatinib possesses various mechanisms for combating cancer, making the development of imatinib analogs an attractive target for cancer research.

METHOD

Two series of analogs were designed and synthesized, maintaining the essential pharmacophoric features in imatinib structure. The synthesized compounds were subjected to cell-based antiproliferative assays against nonsmall lung (A549) and colon cancer cell lines. In addition, flow cytometry cell cycle and caspase-3 colorimetric assays were performed.

RESULTS

Most compounds showed potent anticancer activity against both cell lines with IC₅₀ = 0.14-5.07 μM. Three compounds demonstrated ability to reinforce cell cycle arrest at G1 stage in a manner similar to imatinib. In addition, they induced apoptosis via activation of caspase-3.