Vincristine and ɛ-viniferine-loaded PLGA-b-PEG nanoparticles: pharmaceutical characteristics, cellular uptake and cytotoxicity

Abstract

The objective of this study was to prepare the ɛ-viniferine and vincristine-loaded PLGA-b-PEG nanoparticle and to investigate advantages of these formulations on the cytotoxicity of HepG2 cells. Prepared nanoparticle has shown a homogeneous distribution with 113 ± 0.43 nm particle size and 0.323 ± 0.01 polydispersity index. Zeta potential was determined as −35.03 ± 1.0 mV. The drug-loading percentages were 6.01 ± 0.23 and 2.01 ± 0.07 for ɛ-viniferine and vincristine, respectively. The cellular uptake efficiency of coumarin-6-loaded nanoparticles was increased up to 87.8% after 4 h. Nanoparticles loaded with high concentrations of both drugs showed a cytotoxic effect on HepG2 cells, having the percentage of cell viability of between 43.23% and 47.37%. Unfortunately, the percentage of apoptotic cells after treated with drugs-loaded nanaoparticles (10.93%) was similar to free forms of drugs (12.1%) that might be due to low ɛ-viniferine release in biological pH at 24 h.

Keywords:

• Nanoparticle
• PLGA-b-PEG
• passive targeting
• ɛ-viniferine
• vincristine

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by a grant from the Anadolu University (Project No. 1406S313). The authors wish to thank Anadolu University, Medicinal Plants, Drugs and Scientific Research Center (AÜBİBAM) for technical support.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by a grant from the Anadolu University (Project No. 1406S313).