Drug-Loaded Fluorescent Cubosomes: Versatile Nanoparticles for Potential Theranostic Applications

Abstract

In this work, monoolein-based cubosomes were doped with two fluorescent probes, namely, fluorescein and dansyl, properly modified with a hydrocarbon chain to increase their encapsulation efficiency within the monoolein palisade. The same nanocarriers were also loaded with quercetin, a hydrophobic molecule with potential anticancer activity. Particularly, the cubosomes doped with the modified fluorescein probe were successfully exploited for single living cell imaging. The physicochemical and photophysical characterizations reported here, along with the well-known ability of cubosomes in hosting molecules with pharmaceutical interest, strongly encourage the use of these innovative fluorescent nanocarriers for theranostic purposes.

Steric Stabilizers for Cubic Phase Lyotropic Liquid Crystal Nanodispersions (Cubosomes)

“…These findings were further supported by Almgren and Rangelov who reported cubic nanostructured particles from aqueous dispersions of GMO (RYLO MG 90) in water, using DDP-PEG (DDP(EO) 52 or DDP(EO) 92 ) as the steric stabilizer [206]. However, cubosomes were also identified with an additional cubic phase Q 229 , with Im3m space group.…”

“…The future developments for the stabilization of cubosomes involve adding functionalization (i.e., targeting and MRI imaging agent) to the stabilizer, for active targeting capabilities [92,93,106,108,188]. An extensive review of cubosome targeting, drug delivery, and medical imaging was recently written by Mulet et al [106].…”

Entrapment of curcumin into monoolein-based liquid crystalline nanoparticle dispersion for enhancement of stability and anticancer activity

“…This finding indicates that curcumin was not internalized by passive diffusion, but by an active cellular mechanism such as endocytosis (Figure 8). Consistent with the findings of other studies, 33,34 the fluorescence intensity inside the cell was uniform and even throughout the perinuclear region of the cells. Furthermore, FACS analysis showed that the fluorescence intensity rendered by intracellular uptake was proportional to the concentration of curcumin.…”

Magnetocubosomes for the delivery and controlled release of therapeutics

“…[26][27][28] The structure of the Pn3m cubic phase, sketched in the inset of Figure 1a, is characterized by a continuous curved lipid bilayer region, which forms a complex threedimensional cubic structure separating two continuous non-intersecting water channels. [29] The radius of the inner water channels r w can be calculated according to the relation r w = [(-σ/2πχ) 1/2 a]-l with l the lipid length (17 Å) and σ and χ topological constants, characteristic of a given cubic phase, equal to 1.919 and -2 for the Pn3m structure, respectively.…”