Effect of Andrographolide Solid Lipid Nanoparticles (SLNs) on Breast Cancer

Andrographolide (AD), obtained from Andrographis paniculata (traditionally known as Kalmegh), is responsible for pharmacological properties like antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, astringent, diuretic, carminative, antihelmintic, antipyretic and anticancer [1]. A diterpenoidal anti-cancer drug andrographolide (1) was encapsulated into SLNs because of poor aqueous solubility, intensely bitter taste and problems of stability under neutral and alkaline conditions [2]. Andrographolide-SLNs (AD-SLNs) were prepared successfully by a solvent injection method and the effect of the drug and its SLNs was studied on a breast cancer cell line. The average particle size of an optimized AD-SLN formulation was 154.9 ± 10.7nm with polydispersity index of 0.203 ± 0.07. AD-SLNs were showing sustained effect with 77.89% drug release in 36h in vitro (2) and 23.78 ± 4.728% cell viability in MCF-7 human breast cancer cell line in ex vivo (3) studies, when compared with standard AD. Encapsulating AD into SLNs may reduce the variability in systemic drug levels and also enable dose reduction, leading to reduced side effects and improvement in biopharmaceutic properties.

Acknowledgements: Thanks go to DST (Department of Science and Technology), Ministry of Health, Government of India, for financial support and Gattefosse (France) for providing gift sample of lipids. References: [1] Jarukamjorn K, Nemoto N, (2008)J Health Sci, 54: 370 – 381. [2] Maiti K, Mukherjee K, (2010)J Sci Food and Agr, 90: 43 – 51.