A potential breast cancer dual therapy using phytochemicals-loaded nanoscale penetration enhancing vesicles: A double impact weapon in the arsenal

Abstract

The aim of this study was to prepare novel penetration enhancing vesicles for the co-delivery of sinapic acid and crocin as a new therapy of breast cancer. Unlike single treatment, the dual therapy causes synergistic cancer treatment outcomes leading to lower doses and side-effects. Nano-sized PEVs comprising labrasol were prepared using thin film hydration method. The particle size, PDI and zeta potential were determined. The percentage entrapment efficiency of the two drugs simultaneously was determined using a new validated first-derivative spectrophotometric method where a zero-crossing technique was applied for measurement of amplitudes of sinapic acid and crocin at 281 and 482 nm; respectively. Imaging of the developed nano-carriers was performed using HR-TEM. Finally, the cytotoxicity of the prepared vesicles was evaluated on MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The dual therapy nano-sized PEVs were successfully prepared possessing particles size of 150.5 ± 1.5 nm and neutral zeta potential. The corresponding calibration curves were linear in the range 7.5–40 and 10–90 μg/ml for sinapic acid and crocin; respectively. The proposed method was found to be linear (R > 0.999), accurate (recovery = 101–103%) and precise (RSD < 2%). The entrapment efficiency of sinapic acid and crocin scored 60.23 ± 3.89 and 30.64 ± 4.84, respectively. The release of the two drugs showed sustained profiles. The dual therapy scored an IC50 of 43 ± 0.9 μg/ml compared to >500 and 217 ± 3.6 μg/ml for each of sinapic acid and crocin solely, respectively. This is attributed to apoptotic synergistic effects on the MCF-7 cells. The developed nanoscale PEVs enable a successful dual-impacted breast cancer therapy.