Efficacy of ginsenoside Rg3 nanoparticles against Ehrlich solid tumor growth in mice.

Mona A El-Banna,Mosaad A Abdel-Wahhab,Aziza A El-Nekeety,Omnia M Hendawy

doi:10.1007/s11356-022-19019-y

Abstract

Solid tumors are fairly common and face many clinical difficulties since they are hardly surgically resectable and broadly do not respond to radiation and chemotherapy. The current study aimed to fabricate ginsenoside Rg3 nanoparticles (Rg3-NPs) and evaluate their antitumor effect against Ehrlich solid tumors (EST) in mice. Rg3-NPs were fabricated using whey protein isolates (WPI), maltodextrin (MD), and gum Arabic (GA). EST was developed by the injection of mice with Ehrlich ascites cells (2.5 × 106). The mice were divided into a control group, EST group, and the EST groups that were treated orally 2weeks for with normal Rg3 (3mg/kg b.w.), Rg3-NPs at a low dose (3mg/kg b.w.), and Rg3-NPs at a high dose (6mg/kg b.w.). Serum and solid tumors were collected for different assays. The results revealed that synthesized Rg3-NPs showed a spherical shape with an average particle size of 20nm and zeta potential of -5.58mV. The in vivo study revealed that EST mice showed a significant increase in AFP, Casp3, TNF-α, MMP-9, VEGF, MDA, and DNA damage accompanied by a significant decrease in SOD and GPx. Treatment with Rg3 or Rg3-NPs decreased the tumor weight and size and induced a significant improvement in all the biochemical parameters. Rg3-NPs were more effective than Rg3, and the improvement was dose-dependent. It could be concluded that fabrication of Rg3-NPs enhanced the protective effect against EST development which may be due to the synergistic effect of Rg3 and MD, GA, and WPI.

Highlights

Cancer is the most irremediable disease and considers the main cause of most death all over the world and the global total number of death due to this disease may reach about 13.2 million by 2030 (Wong et al 2015)
The current results showed that MD, gum Arabic (GA), and whey protein isolates (WPI) were successfully used for the synthesis of a round shape Rg3 nanoparticles (Rg3-NPs) as shown in the TEM image (Fig. 1A) with an average particle size of 20 nm (Fig. 1B), ζ potential of -5.58 mV (Fig. 1C)
The current results revealed that the activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) decreased significantly in Ehrlich solid tumors (EST) mice compared with the normal control mice

Summary

Introduction

Cancer is the most irremediable disease and considers the main cause of most death all over the world and the global total number of death due to this disease may reach about 13.2 million by 2030 (Wong et al 2015). Surgery, and chemotherapy are the mainstays of the treatment of cancer but it does have severe side effects and drawbacks, for example, cytotoxicity to normal cells, and chemoresistance (Huang et al 2017). Each of these conventional treatment choices works to focus on the molecular "side effects" of tumor development as opposed to the reason. The alternative and complementary medicines and the application of functional foods or medicinal herbs may be an alternative gateway to combat the cancer progression (Yin et al 2013). Adaptogenic oriental herbs such as ginseng could be the major promising candidates for cancer treatment as complementary and alternative safe medicines and anticancer drugs (Kim et al 2015; Sun et al 2017)

Results

Discussion

Conclusion