Abstract

In an attempt to develop caffeic acid for drug delivery, caffeic acid-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (CA-SLNs) were constructed, and were characterized to determine their properties followed by their evaluation for in vitro cytotoxic properties. The SLNs were prepared by using hot homogenization method. The treatment of H-Ras 5RP7 and NIH/3T3 cell lines with CA and CA-SLNs suggested that CA-SLNs are less toxic to NIH/3T3 normal cells but have more cytotoxic effects on H-Ras 5RP7 as compared with free CA by using MTT assay. In addition, CA-SLNs can increase the cytotoxic effect and accelerate cellular uptake of CA on H-Ras 5RP7 cells. Finally, we observed the structural and ultrastructural changes in both H-Ras 5RP7 and NIH/3T3 cells by using transmission electron and confocal microscopy, respectively. We observed both structure and ultrastructural changes in H-Ras 5RP7 cells without causing any damage to NIH/3T3 cells. These results showed that the SLNs formulation may be promising as a substitute nanosize based drug delivery system for cancer treatment.

Keywords: Caffeic acid (CA), Drug delivery, Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), Cancer.