Antioxidant and anti-cancer activity of Dunaliella salina extract and oral drug delivery potential via nano-based formulations of gum Arabic coated magnetite nanoparticles

Abstract

In the present study, a delivery system containing magnetic nanoparticles grafted with gum arabic (GA) for oral administration of Dunaliella salina extract (DE) was introduced. The physicochemical analysis of GA-coated MNPs via FT-IR, XRD, DLS, and TEM, showed the successful encapsulation, well-crystalized magnetite spherical uniform shape with >200 nm hydrodynamic size. Nanoparticles showed 54.36 emu/cm3 values with −1.12 mV ζ-potential and 6.8% content of GA. Encapsulation efficiency, release profile, antioxidant and anticancer potential were evaluated by UV–Vis spectroscopy, FRAP and MTT assay, respectively. Logarithmic and stationary growth phase DE were loaded onto GA-coated MNPs with loading efficiency and encapsulation capacity of 79.80 and 186.10, respectively. In vitro release study of DE in PBS with pH 4.5 and 7.2 showed relevant release percentage in neutral pH during first 8 h with final relative release values of 72.41 and 43.51% in logarithmic and stationary phase during 48 h, respectively. The antioxidant and cytotoxic activity of DE and DE loaded GA-MNPs on both MCF-7 and HeLa cells indicate that both phases showed strong antioxidant and anticancer effect in time and dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that D. salina extracts loaded GA-MNPs have high potency which are capable to operate as a successful formulation for oral drug delivery of antioxidants.