Curcumin-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles for drug delivery: synthesis, biological assays and therapeutic potential - a review.

Curcumin-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have shown promise as drug delivery systems to address the limited pharmacokinetic characteristics of curcumin. Functionalization with folic acid and PEGylation enhance anticancer activity, biocompatibility, stability, and permeability. Co-delivery with other drugs results in synergistically enhanced cytotoxic activity. Environment-responsive MSNs prevent undesirable drug leakage and increase selectivity towards target tissues. This review summarizes the methods of Cur-loaded MSN synthesis and functionalization and their application in various diseases, and also highlights the potential of Cur-loaded MSNs as a promising drug delivery system.

Studying Adsorption and Cellular Toxicity of Boron Nitride Nanostructure versus Melphalan Anti-ovarian Cancer Drug.

BACKGROUND: Inclusion of anticancer drugs into biocompatible nanoparticulate carriers decreases the general toxicity and improves the efficacy of clinical treatments due to the reduction of soluble circulating free drugs. METHODS: In addition, removal of emerging drug contaminants from wastewaters is a necessity that should be seriously attended. Boron nitride (BN) is a choice in drug delivery because of its many surprising properties. Here, boron nitride nanoparticles are prepared, characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and x-ray diffraction (XRD) and used in the delivery of melphalan anti-cancer drug. RESULTS: Then, density functional theory (DFT) calculations are carried out to study the adsorption of this drug on the surface of pure boron nitride fullerene via familiar hybrid functionals B3LYP and B3PW91. In addition, the polarizable continuum model (PCM) calculations show that BN is stable in water. CONCLUSION: Finally, the in vitro cellular toxicity and viability of BN nanoparticles was examined on ES-2 cancer cells. The inhibitory dose IC50 of the material confirmed acceptable cytotoxicity and nanoparticles affected the average growth of the ES-2 cancer cells.

A qHNMR method for simultaneous quantification of terpenoids from Ferula ovina (Boiss.) Boiss roots.

Ferula ovina (Boiss.) Boiss is one of the most important endemic medicinal plants in Iran, which has three main terpenoid compounds including ferutinin, stylosin and tschimgine. Ferutinin is the strongest natural phytoestrogen that has agonistic activity on estrogen receptors, particularly α-receptors. To determine the amount of ferutinin in F. ovina roots, we firstly used HPLC-UV method. In the HPLC method, the resolution of ferutinin from the two other compounds, stylosin and tshimgine, was poor. Therefore, we decided to use qHNMR method for simultaneous quantification of ferutinin, stylosin and tshimgine in the plant roots. Quantitative 1H-NMR (qHNMR) was carried out based on the relative ratio of signal integration of each compound [(H-1 for tschimgine (δH 4.94-5.03), OCH3 for stylosin (δH 3.8), and H-9 for ferutinin (δH 5.58)] to certain amount of the internal standard dimethyl sulfone (DMSO2). The qHNMR method showed good precision (intra-day RSD ≤ 2.31%, inter-day RSD ≤ 2.72%), linearity (in the ranges of 1.3-10.41, 1.2-9.7 and 1.1-9.02 mg/mL with correlation coefficients at 0.9991), repeatability (RSD ≤ 2.99%) and stability (RSD ≤ 2.4%) for the quantification of the compounds. This work confirmed that qHNMR represents a feasible alternative to high-performance liquid chromatography based methods for simultaneous quantification of ingredients in plant extracts.