Practical Liposomal Formulation for Taxanes with Polyethoxylated Castor Oil and Ethanol with Complete Encapsulation Efficiency and High Loading Efficiency

Hyaluronic Acid-Based Nanocapsules as Efficient Delivery Systems of Garlic Oil Active Components with Anticancer Activity

Diallyl disulfide (DADS) and diallyl trisulfide (DATS) are garlic oil compounds exhibiting beneficial healthy properties including anticancer action. However, these compounds are sparingly water-soluble with a limited stability that may imply damage to blood vessels or cells after administration. Thus, their encapsulation in the oil-core nanocapsules based on a derivative of hyaluronic acid was investigated here as a way of protecting against oxidation and undesired interactions with blood and digestive track components. The nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) technique was used to follow the oxidation processes. It was proved that the shell of the capsule acts as a barrier limiting the sulfur oxidation, enhancing the stability of C=C bonds in DADS and DATS. Moreover, it was shown that the encapsulation inhibited the lysis of the red blood cell membrane (mainly for DADS) and interactions with serum or digestive track components. Importantly, the biological functions and anticancer activity of DADS and DATS were preserved after encapsulation. Additionally, the nanocapsule formulations affected the migration of neoplastic cells—a desirable preliminary observation concerning the inhibition of migration. The proposed route of administration of these garlic extract components would enable reaching their higher concentrations in blood, longer circulation in a bloodstream, and thus, imply a better therapeutic effect.

Size-Tunable Paclitaxel Nanoparticles Stabilized by Anionic Phospholipids for Transdermal Delivery Applications

Composite nanoparticles composed of an anionic phospholipid of 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphorylglycerol (DPPG) and paclitaxel (PTX) were successfully prepared by mixing them in water followed by a subsequent heating/cooling process. The size of DPPG-PTX nanoparticle could be easily tuned by ultrasonic fragmentation. Upon addition of small-sized fluorescently labeled paclitaxel (FLPTX) nanoparticles with DPPG (DPPG-FLPTX) to rat skin tissue, part of the FLPTX molecules permeated to the stratum corneum.

Cancer stem cell induction from mouse embryonic stem cells

Although cancers are often removed by surgery and treated by chemotherapy and/or radiation therapies, they often reoccur following treatment due to the presence of resistant residual cells such as cancer stem cells (CSCs). CSCs are characterized by their self-renewal, pluripotency, and tumorigenicity properties, and are promising therapeutic targets for the complete therapy of cancers; however, the number of CSCs in cancer tissue is typically too small to investigate fully. We have previously reported that CSCs could be established from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using a conditioned medium during cancer cell culture. In the present study, mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) were observed to be converted to CSCs (mES-CSCs). This demonstrated that CSC induction does not exclusively occur following gene editing in somatic cells, and that conditioned medium from cancer cells may contain factors that can induce CSCs. Therefore, not only iPSCs but also mESCs, were demonstrated to be able to produce CSCs as one of the potentials of pluripotency of stem cells, suggesting that the conversion to CSCs is not specific to iPSCs. The resultant mES-CSCs would be also useful to generate tissue specific cancers and these naturally occurring cancers can contribute to drug screenings, but also undergo further investigation in order to reveal cancer mechanisms.

The modulation of drug-loading stability within lipid membranes via medium chain triglycerides incorporation

The current research aimed to explore medium chain triglycerides (MCT) incorporation in liposomes to overcome stability challenges when drugs with high molecular weight and payload are loaded within lipid membranes. A model drug clarithromycin was loaded in lipid dispersions with various MCT/phospholipids ratios (R_M/P = 0, 0.5, 1.75 and 7.5 w/w). TEM images demonstrated a liposome-to-emulsion structural transformation by MCT incorporation to cause increased particle size (104.3-167.7 nm) but decreased zeta potential (-63.6 to -44.4 mV) of lipid particles. MCT incorporation produced biphasic release in PBS and accelerated released in plasma. The tolerance of liposomes for thermal sterilization, high temperature test and freeze-thaw cycles were significantly improved by MCT incorporation. However, MCT incorporation produced adverse effects on colloidal stability in plasma and pharmacokinetics behavior in vivo to some extent. MCT stabilizing mechanism attributes to the modulation of drug loading area and stability improvement of lipid carriers. MCT incorporated liposomes achieved 2-3 fold cellular uptake level than traditional liposomes without significant cytotoxicity. These results indicated that MCT incorporation could be a promising strategy to apply in liposome production to achieve stable drug loading.

Targeting Glioblastoma Cells Expressing CD44 with Liposomes Encapsulating Doxorubicin and Displaying Chlorotoxin-IgG Fc Fusion Protein

We recently have established a successful xenograft model of human glioblastoma cells by enriching hyaluronic acid-dependent spheroid-forming populations termed U251MG-P1 cells from U251MG cells. Since U251MG-P1 cells have been confirmed to express CD44 along with principal stemness marker genes, OCT3/4, SOX2, KLF4 and Nanog, this CD44 expressing population appeared to majorly consist of undifferentiated cells. Evaluating the sensitivity to anti-cancer agents, we found U251MG-P1 cells were sensitive to doxorubicin with IC₅₀ at 200 nM. Although doxorubicin has serious side-effects, establishment of an efficient therapy targeting undifferentiated glioblastoma cell population is necessary. We previously designed a chlorotoxin peptide fused to human IgG Fc region without hinge sequence (M-CTX-Fc), which exhibited a stronger growth inhibitory effect on the glioblastoma cell line A172 than an original chlorotoxin peptide. Combining these results together, we designed M-CTX-Fc conjugated liposomes encapsulating doxorubicin and used U251MG-P1 cells as the target model in this study. The liposome modified with M-CTX-Fc was designed with a diameter of approximately 100-150 nm and showed high encapsulation efficiency, adequate loading capacity of anticancer drug, enhanced antitumor effects demonstrating increasing uptake into the cells in vitro; M-CTX-Fc-L-Dox shows great promise in its ability to suppress tumor growth in vivo and it could serve as a template for targeted delivery of other therapeutics.