Enhancing the possibility of using curcumin for breast cancer treatment

Curcumin, an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties found in the spice turmeric, has drawn interest as a potential treatment for cancer. But low solubility in water, blood and low penetration rates in tumor cells has hampered its progress.

To address such hurdles, researchers have explored gold nanoparticles as a delivery platform. Nanoscale gold, which is biocompatible and hydrophilic, is considered a good nanocarrier candidate. But loading the curcumin onto gold nanoparticles has proved challenging.

Building on the latest research using gold nanoparticles as nanocarriers with a focus on breast cancer, Mahalunkar et al. showed how folate can be used to make curcumin gold nanoparticles more compatible. In addition to enabling attachment of curcumin to the nanoparticles, folate can be used to target individual cancer cells since the folate receptors are overexpressed on their surfaces.

In their study, the researchers coated the citrate stabilized gold nanoparticles with polyvinylpyrrolidone as a surface stabilizer before loading the curcumin and folate onto the nanoparticles. Curcumin loading efficiency was about 40 micrograms per milliliter (μg/ml) of the gold nanoconjugate, with about 80% drug-release efficiency at acidic pH.

In studying the cytotoxicity for several breast cancer cell lines in separate experiments with mouse cells, the researchers found that the half maximal inhibitory concentration for nanoconjugates is 50 μg/ml, the dose required to kill cancer cells. On the other hand, between 100-200 μg/ml of the nanoconjugate showed some levels of cytotoxicity toward normal human and mouse cell lines.

Thus, the formulation of folated curcumin loaded gold-polymer nanoconjugates proves to be a promising approach for tumor-specific therapy without affecting normal cells.

Source: “Folated curcumin-gold nanoformulations: A nanotherapeutic strategy for breast cancer therapy,” by Sneha Mahalunkar, Gopal C. Kundu, and Suresh W. Gosavi, Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology B (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1116/6.0000148 .