Besides significant progress in the field of cancer therapy, breast cancer remains the major ongoing health problem among the women worldwide because of the side effects of available drugs. This problem can be overcome by loading herbal extract into the polymeric nanoparticles that will aid in site-specific drug delivery and increase in the retention time of drug, thereby improving therapeutic efficacy.
In the present study, the anti-cancer activity of nanoparticles loaded with extract of
The active compounds of the plant viz. artemisinin, artemisinic acid, and alpha-thujone showed the Rf value of 0.52 ± 0.02, 0.32 ± 0.02 and 0.48 ± 0.01, respectively. Among the different plant parts used for extract preparation, the whole plant extract displayed maximum cytotoxicity with least IC50 value (≈300µg/µL for both cell lines). Therefore, whole plant extract was loaded into the polymeric NPs. Using DLS and TEM the average particle size of synthesized NPs was found to be 130 nm and 80 nm, respectively. Confocal imaging of rhodamine B tagged NPs showed significant uptake of NPs by the cells. The apoptotic assays showed a significant apoptosis in extract loaded NPs in comparison to extract alone whereas void nanoparticles do not significantly affect the cell survival.
The results obtained reflect the significant efficacy of extract loaded NPs in inducing apoptosis in breast cancer cells even at a very low drug concentration used. Thus, the synthesized ANPs can be used for further
Dr. Saima Wajid
Has not received any funding
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.