Development and characterization of cationic solid lipid nanoparticles for co-delivery of pemetrexed and miR-21 antisense oligonucleotide to glioblastoma cells

Abstract

The practical use of solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) in research has been highlighted in the literature, but few reports have combined SLNs with miRNA-based therapy and chemotherapy. We aimed to prepare cationic SLNs (cSLNs) to load anti-miR-21 oligonucleotide and pemetrexed for glioblastoma therapy in vitro. cSLNs were employed to encapsulate both pemetrexed and anti-miR-21 by a high-pressure homogenization method, and then the properties of cSLNs were characterized. We studied cellular uptake and cytotoxicity properties of cSLNs in U87MG cells. cSLNs were 124.9 ± 1.6 nm in size and 27.3 ± 1.6 mV in zeta potential with spherical morphology in the TEM image. cSLNs uptake by U87MG cells was increased significantly higher and more effective than free pemetrexed. These findings suggest that cSLNs represent a potential new approach for carrying both pemetrexed and anti-miR-21 for glioblastoma therapy.

Keywords:

• Pemetrexed
• anti-miRNA oligonucleotide
• microRNA-21
• solid lipid nanoparticles
• glioblastoma

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Şükran Yılmaz and Taibe Arsoy from Foot and Mouth Disease Institute for their support in performing the cell culture studies. The authors are also thankful to Asst. Prof. Dr. Ongun Mehmet Saka and Asst. Prof. Dr. Burcu Devrim (Ankara University Department of Pharmaceutical Technology) for their help to carry out the research work.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Ankara Universitesi [12B3336004].