In vitro and in vivo effects of free and chalcones-loaded nanoemulsions: insights and challenges in targeted cancer chemotherapies

Therapeutic Implications of Dietary Polyphenols-Loaded Nanoemulsions in Cancer Therapy

Cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide, even the second foremost cause related to non-communicable diseases. Cancer cells typically possess several cellular and biological processes including, persistence, propagation, differentiation, cellular death, and expression of cellular-type specific functions. The molecular picture of carcinogenesis and progression is unwinding, and it appears to be a tangled combination of processes occurring within and between cancer cells and their surrounding tissue matrix. Polyphenols are plant secondary metabolites abundant in fruits, vegetables, cereals, and other natural plant sources. Natural polyphenols have implicated potential anticancer activity by various mechanisms involved in their antitumor action, including modulation of signaling pathways majorly related to cellular proliferation, differentiation, relocation, angiogenesis, metastatic processes, and cell death. The applications of polyphenols have been limited due to the hydrophobic nature and lower oral bioavailability that could be possibly overcome through encapsulating them into nanocarrier-mediated delivery systems, leading to improved anticancer activity. Nanoemulsions (NEs) possess diverse feasible properties, including greater surface area, modifiable surficial charge, higher half-life, site-specific targeting, and formulation imaging capability necessary to create a practical therapeutic impact, and have drawn increased attention in cancer therapy research. This review has summarized and discussed the basic concepts, classification, delivery approaches, and anticancer mechanism of various polyphenols and polyphenols-encapsulated nanoemulsions with improved cancer therapy.

Repurposing maduramicin as a novel anticancer and anti-metastasis agent for triple-negative breast cancer as enhanced by nanoemulsion

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is featured by aggression and metastasis and remains an unmet medical challenge due to high death rate. We aimed to repurpose maduramicin (MAD) as an effective drug against TNBC, and develop a nanoemulsion system to enhance anticancer efficacy of MAD. MDA-MB-231 and 4 T1 cells were used as in vitro model, and cell viability was determined by performing cell counting kit-8 and a colony-formation assay. Furthermore, MAD loaded nanoemulsion (MAD-NEs) was manufactured and characterized by a series of tests. The anticancer and anti-metastasis mechanism of MAD-NEs were assessed by performing cell cycle, apoptosis, wound-healing, transwell assay and Western blotting assays. Herein, MAD was firstly demonstrated to be an effective agent to suppress growth of TNBC cells. Subsequently, the optimized MAD-NEs were shown to have stability and high encapsulation efficiency, and could arrested cells in G0/G1 phase and induced apoptosis in TNBC cells. More importantly, MAD-NEs significantly impeded the metastasis of tumor cells, which was further demonstrated by the significant altered expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition and extracellular matrix markers in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, compared to MAD, MAD-NEs exhibited higher efficacy in shrinking breast tumor size and repressing liver and lung metastasis in vivo, and showed excellent biocompatibility in tumor-bearing mice. The successfully prepared MAD-NEs are expected to be harnessed to suppress tumor growth, invasion and metastasis in the battle against malignant TNBC.

Self-assembled peptide nanoparticles for efficient delivery of methotrexate into cancer cells

The low cellular uptake of Methotrexate (MTX), a commonly used anticancer drug, is a big challenge for efficient cancer therapy. Self-assembled peptide nanoparticles (SAPNs) are one of the major classes of peptide vectors that have gained much attention toward novel drug delivery systems. In the present study, different sequences of cell-penetrating peptides including R2W4R2 and W3R4W3 and their SAPNs (R2W4R2-E12 and W3R4W3-E12) were designed for efficient delivery of MTX into MCF7 breast cancer cells. Based on electron microscopy results, the obtained SAPNs were in nano scale with spherical shape. There was a positive relationship between the free energy of water to octanol transferring and cellular penetration of designed nanostructures. The R2W4R2 possessed proper free energy and ability to form a spherical structure and hydrophobic-hydrophobic interactions, therefore, exhibited more cellular penetration than W3R4W3. The cellular uptake of obtained nanoparticles was examined by flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy, in which, R2W4R2 and R2W4R2-E12 showed more appropriate penetration into MCF7 cells than W3R4W3 and W3R4W3-E12. The cytotoxicity of MTX-loaded peptides and SAPNs was examined by MTT assay. As a result, at higher concentrations, the R2W4R2 and R2W4R2-E12 showed higher cytotoxic behavior than their counterparts. Despite their enhanced cellular internalization, the cytotoxic behavior of MTX-loaded SAPNs at lower concentrations was relatively less than free MTX, which could be ascribed to the gradual nature of drug detachment from these conjugates. Therefore, R2W4R2 could be considered as an efficient choice to enhance the therapeutic efficiency of MTX in cancer treatments.

Current Applications of Nanoemulsions in Cancer Therapeutics

Nanoemulsions are pharmaceutical formulations composed of particles within a nanometer range. They possess the capacity to encapsulate drugs that are poorly water soluble due to their hydrophobic core nature. Additionally, they are also composed of safe gradient excipients, which makes them a stable and safe option to deliver drugs. Cancer therapy has been an issue for several decades. Drugs developed to treat this disease are not always successful or end up failing, mainly due to low solubility, multidrug resistance (MDR), and unspecific toxicity. Nanoemulsions might be the solution to achieve efficient and safe tumor treatment. These formulations not only solve water-solubility problems but also provide specific targeting to cancer cells and might even be designed to overcome MDR. Nanoemulsions can be modified using ligands of different natures to target components present in tumor cells surface or to escape MDR mechanisms. Multifunctional nanoemulsions are being studied by a wide variety of researchers in different research areas mainly for the treatment of different types of cancer. All of these studies demonstrate that nanoemulsions are efficiently taken by the tumoral cells, reduce tumor growth, eliminate toxicity to healthy cells, and decrease migration of cancer cells to other organs.

Self-nanoemulsifying system improves oral absorption and enhances anti-acute myeloid leukemia activity of berberine

BACKGROUND

Recently, we found that berberine (BBR) exerts anti-acute myeloid leukemia activity, particularly toward high-risk and relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia MV4-11 cells in vitro. However, the poor water solubility and low bioavailability observed with oral BBR administration has limited its clinical use. Therefore, we design and develop a novel oil-in-water self-nanoemulsifying system for BBR (BBR SNE) to improve oral bioavailability and enhance BBR efficacy against acute myeloid leukemia by greatly improving its solubility.

RESULTS

This system (size 23.50 ± 1.67 nm, zeta potential - 3.35 ± 0.03 mV) was prepared with RH40 (surfactant), 1,2-propanediol (co-surfactant), squalene (oil) and BBR using low-energy emulsification methods. The system loaded BBR successfully according to thermal gravimetric, differential scanning calorimetry, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analyses. The release profile results showed that BBR SNE released BBR more slowly than BBR solution. The relative oral bioavailability of this novel system in rabbits was significantly enhanced by 3.41-fold over that of BBR. Furthermore, Caco-2 cell monolayer transport studies showed that this system could help enhance permeation and prevent efflux of BBR. Importantly, mice with BBR SNE treatment had significantly longer survival time than BBR-treated mice (P < 0.001) in an MV4-11 engrafted leukemia murine model.

CONCLUSIONS

These studies confirmed that BBR SNE is a promising therapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

Solid lipid nanoparticles improve octyl gallate antimetastatic activity and ameliorate its renal and hepatic toxic effects

Metastasis is the main cause of cancer-related death and requires the development of effective treatments with reduced toxicity and effective anticancer activity. Gallic acid derivatives have shown significant biological properties including antitumoral activity as shown in a previous study with octyl gallate (G8) in vitro. Thus, the aim of this work was to evaluate the antimetastatic effect of free and solid lipid nanoparticle-loaded G8 in mice in a lung metastasis model. Animals inoculated with melanoma cells presented metastasis in lungs, which was significantly inhibited by treatment with G8 and solid lipid nanoparticle-loaded G8, named G8-NVM. However, G8-treated mice showed an increase in several toxicological parameters, which were almost completely circumvented by G8-NVM treatment. This study supports the need for pharmacological studies on new potential medicinal plants to treat cancer and can provide new perspectives on using nanotechnology to improve biological activities while decreasing the chemotherapy toxicological effects of anticancer drugs.

Established Human Cell Lines as Models to Study Anti-leukemic Effects of Flavonoids

Despite the extensive work on pathological mechanisms and some recent advances in the treatment of different hematological malignancies, leukemia continues to present a significant challenge being frequently considered as incurable disease. Therefore, the development of novel therapeutic agents with high efficacy and low toxicity is urgently needed to improve the overall survival rate of patients. In this comprehensive review article, the current knowledge about the anticancer activities of flavonoids as plant secondary polyphenolic metabolites in the most commonly used human established leukemia cell lines (HL-60, NB4, KG1a, U937, THP-1, K562, Jurkat, CCRF- CEM, MOLT-3, and MOLT-4) is compiled, revealing clear anti-proliferative, pro-apoptotic, cell cycle arresting, and differentiation inducing effects for certain compounds. Considering the low toxicity of these substances in normal blood cells, the presented data show a great potential of flavonoids to be developed into novel anti-leukemia agents applicable also in the malignant cells resistant to the current conventional chemotherapeutic drugs.