Preparation and Quality Evaluation of Honokiol Nanoparticles Using a New Polysaccharide Polymer as its Carrier.

OBJECTIVE: To improve the solubility of Honokiol (HNK), Honokiol nanoparticles (HNK-NPs) were prepared using a new biodegradable polysaccharide polymer as its carrier. METHODS: HNK-NPs were prepared by hydrophilic polymer coagulation method, and the processing parameters were optimized according to average particle size and PDI by a single factor experiment. The morphology of the optimized nanoparticles was investigated by TEM, and the in vitro release was carried out to evaluate the optimized HNK-NPs. RESULTS: The encapsulation efficiency and drug loading of the HNK-NPs were 77.75 ± 2.63% and 13.46 ± 0.39%, respectively. The obtained nanoparticles of HNK-NPs were spherical-like under the electron microscope with a mean particle size of 198.50 ± 0.01 nm and a Zeta potential of -52.60 ± 1.00 mV. The in vitro release results showed that the cumulative release rates of nanoparticles were 48.28 ± 9.80% and 81.12 ± 4.35% within 2 h and 8 h, respectively, showing a stable release behavior. The average particle size and PDI of HNK-NPs solution prepared by the hydrophilic polymer condensation method had no obvious change at 72h. CONCLUSION: HNK-NPs were successfully prepared by the phase separation method. This new polysaccharide polymer should be an ideal carrier to help improve the solubility of HNK.

Identification of Potential WSB1 Inhibitors by AlphaFold Modeling, Virtual Screening, and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Studies.

WD40 repeat and SOCS box containing 1 (WSB1) consists of seven WD40 repeat structural domains at the N-terminal end and one SOCS box structural domain at the C-terminal end. WSB1 promotes cancer progression by affecting the Von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor protein (pVHL) and upregulating hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) target gene expression. However, the crystal structure of WSB1 has not been reported, which is not beneficial to the research on WSB1 inhibitors. Therefore, we focused on specific small molecule inhibitors of WSB1. This study applied virtual screening and molecular dynamics simulations; finally, 20 compounds were obtained. Among them, compound G490-0341 showed the best stable structure and was a promising composite for further development of WSB1 inhibitors.