STUDY ON CURCUMIN BASED NANOMEDICINE AGAINST CANCER STEM CELLS

Abstract

Present within a tumour is a subpopulation of cells known as cancer stem cells which can renew themselves, differentiate into tumour cells and are capable of inducing tumour if transplanted into an animal host. These are responsible for drug resistance, metastasis and recurrence of cancer. Drug resistance in these cells is a combined effect of certain properties such as presence of drug efflux transporters and detoxifying enzymes, ability to repair its own DNA and over-expression of anti-apoptotic proteins. Existing chemotherapy and radiotherapy techniques fail to eradicate these cells. Controlled drug delivery by nanomaterials holds great potential to overcome this barrier as it surpasses the low aqueous solubility and stability of most anticancer drugs that are known and requires low drug dosage thereby reducing non specific toxicity by targeting specific site. Small size also increases penetration of nanomaterials inside the tumour. Nanomaterials can be liposomes, nanoparticles, nanotubes, micelles, etc. Easy to synthesize, micelles have been reported as effective drug carriers against cancerous cells. Present work proposes a potential anticancer role of the well known natural product- Curcumin which is being utilised for the treatment of various diseases and has been reported to hinder angiogenesis and tumour growth. In this study, DSPE-PEG micelles were successfully prepared by film dispersion method and loaded with Curcumin. These were then characterised for particle size, drug encapsulation efficiency and morphology. Finally, the nanoformulation was tested for its anticancer activity on YAC-1 cells. The prepared nanoformulation had an average size of 108.9nm and comprised a major population of circular shaped molecules. It was observed that treating YAC-1 cells by this nanoformulation at 20μM concentration for 72 hours, more than 90% of the cells died.