Curcumin Conjugated Silica Nanoparticles for Improving Bioavailability and Its Anticancer Applications

Abstract

Curcumin, a yellow bioactive component of Indian spice turmeric, is known to have a wide spectrum of biological applications. In spite of various astounding therapeutic properties, it lacks in bioavailability mainly due to its poor solubility in water. In this work, we have conjugated curcumin with silica nanoparticles to improve its aqueous solubility and hence to make it more bioavailable. Conjugation and loading of curcumin with silica nanoparticles was further examined with transmission electron microscope (TEM) and thermogravimetric analyzer. Cytotoxicity analysis of synthesized silica:curcumin conjugate was studied against HeLa cell lines as well as normal fibroblast cell lines. This study shows that silica:curcumin conjugate has great potential for anticancer application.

Core–shell biopolymer nanoparticle delivery systems: Synthesis and characterization of curcumin fortified zein–pectin nanoparticles

“…Many efforts have been made to increase the water-dispersibility and bioavailability of curcumin, including encapsulation in liposomes (Dhule et al, 2012), cyclodextrins (Mohan et al, 2012), emulsions (Ahmed et al, 2012;Li, Ma, & Cui, 2014;Lin et al, 2009), solid lipid nanoparticles (Sun et al, 2013), polymer nanoparticles (Simion et al, 2013;Verderio et al, 2013), and inorganic nanoparticles (Gangwar et al, 2013;Jambhrunkar et al, 2014;Singh et al, 2013). Recently, there has been interest in utilizing biopolymer nanoparticles fabricated from proteins or polysaccharides to encapsulate curcumin, such as casein (Esmaili et al, 2011;Pan, Zhong, & Baek, 2013), chitosan (Yadav et al, 2012), and starch (Chin et al, 2014).…”

Layer-by-layer capsules as smart delivery systems of CeO2 nanoparticle-based theranostic agents

“…In the literature, there are many examples of the preparation of drug-based sols using nanoparticles. The above mentioned curcumin was successfully stabilized in the aqueous sol by SiO 2 nanoparticles (the sol's stability is 100 times higher than in water) [47]; silica+curcumin composite has great promise in cancer therapy [48]. Our preliminary studies have shown that stability of the aqueous curcumin sols in the presence of cerium oxide nanoparticles also increases.…”

Targeting Cancer with Nano-Bullets: Curcumin, EGCG, Resveratrol and Quercetin on Flying Carpets

“…Silica nanoparticles conjugated to curcumin have recently been studied for efficacy in cervical cancer cells (Gangwar et al, 2013). Curcumin-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) have also been shown to display controlled release of the compund.…”