Development of Epirubicin encapsulated BSA nanoparticles for lung cancer nanotheranostics

Abstract

Millions of people are diagnosed with lung cancer and a large proportion of them dies every year. A variety of treatments are available including chemotherapy, but the available drug therapies are less affordable and have some severe side effects. Epirubicin (EPI) is an anticancer and antibiotic drug. It is an epimer of doxorubicin and nowadays is widely used in cancer therapy due to its fewer side effects and less cardiotoxicity nature. Targeted delivery of the drugs is challenging to reduce the side effects and limit its toxicity to non-tumour tissues. Nanoparticles (NPs) are successful carriers in the targeted delivery of the drugs and resolve this problem. This study aims to develop a novel approach of encapsulating Epirubicin into bovine serum albumin (BSA) and delivering it into tumour microenvironment to restrict the tumour progression in lung cancer. In this study EPI encapsulated nanoparticles was synthesised by desolvation method. The characterisation of the synthesised nanoparticles was performed using UV-vis spectroscopy, Zeta potential studies, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Drug release assay was performed to study the release pattern of drug. The anticancer effect of EPI nanoparticles was performed on A549 lung cancer cell line. Cytotoxicity of cells was assessed using MTT assay and fluorescence cell imaging were performed for analysing apoptotic cells. The synthesised NPs can be further used for animal models to validate their anticancer efficacy. This study promises a safe method for targeted delivery of drugs with lower drug dosage and few side effects.