Artigo Revisado por pares

β-Casein nanoparticle-based oral drug delivery system for potential treatment of gastric carcinoma: Stability, target-activated release and cytotoxicity

2011; Elsevier BV; Volume: 80; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.ejpb.2011.10.022

ISSN

1873-3441

Autores

Alina Shapira, Irit Davidson, Noa Avni, Yehuda G. Assaraf, Yoav D. Livney,

Tópico(s)

Protein Hydrolysis and Bioactive Peptides

Resumo

We studied a potential drug delivery system comprising the hydrophobic anticancer drug paclitaxel entrapped within β-casein (β-CN) nanoparticles and its cytotoxicity to human gastric carcinoma cells. Paclitaxel was entrapped by stirring its dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solution into PBS containing β-CN. Cryo-TEM analysis revealed drug nanocrystals, the growth of which was blocked by β-CN. Entrapment efficiency was nearly 100%, and the nanovehicles formed were colloidally stable. Following encapsulation and simulated digestion with pepsin (2 hours at pH = 2, 37 °C), paclitaxel retained its cytotoxic activity to human N-87 gastric cancer cells; the IC50 value (32.5 ± 6.2 nM) was similar to that of non-encapsulated paclitaxel (25.4 ± 2.6 nM). Without prior simulated gastric digestion, β-CN-paclitaxel nanoparticles were non-cytotoxic, suggesting the lack of untoward toxicity to bucal and esophageal epithelia. We conclude that β-CN shows promise to be useful for target-activated oral delivery of hydrophobic chemotherapeutics in the treatment of gastric carcinoma, one of the leading causes of cancer mortality worldwide.

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