ABSTRACT
CONTEXT: Combination anticancer therapy is promising to generate synergistic anticancer effects, to maximize the treatment effect and to overcome multi-drug resistance. Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs), composed of solid and liquid lipids, and surfactants are potentially good colloidal drug carriers. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to construct novel NLCs as nanocarriers for co-delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) and cisplatin (CDDP) to treat breast cancer. METHODS: DOX and CDDP loaded NLCs (D-C-NLCs) were prepared by the solvent diffusion method. The in vitro cytotoxicity and synergistic studies of different formulations were evaluated on human breast cancer cells (doxorubicin resistant) (MCF-7/ADR cells). In vivo anti-tumor effects were observed on the murine bearing MCF-7/ADR cells model. RESULTS: D-C-NLCs showed the highest cytotoxicity and synergistic effect of two drugs in tumor cells in vitro. The in vivo study revealed the greatest anti-tumor activity than the other formulations in the breast cancer model. CONCLUSION: The constructed NLCs could be used as a novel carrier for co-delivery of DOX and CDDP for breast cancer therapy. D-C-NLCs could be a promising targeted and combinational therapy nanomedicine.
ABSTRACT
In this research, a sensitive and reliable LC-MS/MS method was developed and applied to determine the concentration of pristimerin in rat plasma, cell incubation media and metabolism incubation mixtures. The absolute oral bioavailability of pristimerin is 28.4% at a dose of 1 mg·kg(-1), and the bioavailability was poor. The bidirectional transport of pristimerin across Caco-2 cells was studied in vitro. A markedly higher transport of pristimerin across Caco-2 cells was observed in the basolateral-to-apical direction and was abrogated in the presence of the P-gp inhibitor, verapamil. The result indicated that P-gp might be involved in the transport of pristimerin in intestine. The phase I and phase II metabolic stability was also investigated using human liver microsomes (HLM) and S9 fractions, respectively. Pristimerin was stable in S9 fractions but metabolized in HLM with a half-life of 20.4 min, which indicated that pristimerin could be mainly metabolized by phase I enzymes. In conclusion, the absolute oral bioavailability of pristimerin in plasma, transport across Caco-2 cell monolayers, and metabolic stability in HLM and S9 fractions were systematically investigated by using a sensitive and reliable LC-MS/MS method.
