Monday, September 14, 2015

mPEG-PLGA used for codelivery of SH-Aspirin and curcumin as a treatment of ovarian cancer

PolySciTech division of Akina, Inc. (www.polyscitech.com) provides a wide array of biodegradable block copolymers including mPEG-PLGA. This polymer has a water-soluble side (mPEG) and an oil-soluble side (PLGA). Because of this, it tends to self-assemble into micelles or particles that disperse in water and contain oil-soluble compounds in the interior core. Typically administering such compounds to a patient is very difficult because they cannot be dissolved in isotonic saline for injection and they tend to be removed rapidly from the blood stream by the kidneys and liver. Dispersing these hydrophobic medicinal compounds inside the polymer core allows them to have longer circulation times and higher therapeutic effect. Recently research has shown that mPEG-PLGA can assist in the codelivery of SH-aspirin and curcumin to improve their therapeutic efficacy against ovarian cancer. Read more: Zhou, Lin, Xingmei Duan, Shi Zeng, Ke Men, Xueyan Zhang, Li Yang, and Xiang Li. "Codelivery of SH-aspirin and curcumin by mPEG-PLGA nanoparticles enhanced antitumor activity by inducing mitochondrial apoptosis." International journal of nanomedicine 10 (2015): 5205. Full-Text available from NIH: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4547632/


“Abstract: Natural product curcumin (Cur) and H2S-releasing prodrug SH-aspirin (SH-ASA) are potential anticancer agents with diverse mechanisms, but their clinical application prospects are restricted by hydrophobicity and limited efficiency. In this work, we coencapsulated SH-ASA and Cur into methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-poly (lactide-coglycolide) (mPEG-PLGA) nanoparticles through a modified oil-in-water single-emulsion solvent evaporation process. The prepared SH-ASA/Cur-coloaded mPEG-PLGA nanoparticles had a mean particle size of 122.3±6.8 nm and were monodispersed (polydispersity index =0.179±0.016) in water, with high drug-loading capacity and stability. Intriguingly, by treating with SH-ASA/Cur-coloaded mPEG-PLGA nanoparticles, obvious synergistic anticancer effects on ES-2 and SKOV3 human ovarian carcinoma cells were observed in vitro, and activation of the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway was indicated. Our results demonstrated that SH-ASA/Cur-coloaded mPEG-PLGA nanoparticles could have potential clinical advantages for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Keywords: drug delivery, cancer therapy, ovarian cancer, synergistic effect”

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