Gram‐scale production of carrier‐free fluorescent berberine microrods for selective liver cancer therapy

Abstract

Berberine, a widely used isoquinoline alkaloid in traditional Chinese medicine, has been proved to be a potential candidate in liver cancer therapy. However, the low therapeutic dose in the tumor target which is due to the poor solubility and oral bioavailability has limited its clinical application. In this study, fluorescent selfcarried Berberine microrods (Ber-MRs) were prepared in gram-scale through a facile and cheap antisolvent precipitation method. Ber-MRs exhibited good optical properties, pH-responsive drug release behavior and selective and safe antitumor performance in vitro and in vivo without obvious toxicity. These findings have demonstrated that Ber-MRs are promising for efficient and safe liver cancer therapy.These authors contributed equally to this work.

Self-Assembly Engineering Nanodrugs Composed of Paclitaxel and Curcumin for the Combined Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

“…Carrier-free drug delivery systems are recently developed alternatives that do not rely on inert carriers and thus avoid potential toxicity. Common strategies for preparing carrier-free nanodrugs include nanoprecipitation, thin-film hydration, template-assisted nanoprecipitation, supercritical fluid techniques, spray drying, and wet media milling ( Zhang et al, 2018 ; Zheng et al, 2018 ; Sun et al, 2019 ; Zhou et al, 2019 ). Relative to free drugs, carrier-free nanodrugs have prolonged blood circulation times, better cellular penetration, and greater tumor accumulation ( Yang et al, 2019 ), which has generated interest regarding their clinical applications.…”

<p>Network Pharmacology-Based Prediction and Verification of the Active Ingredients and Potential Targets of Zuojinwan for Treating Colorectal Cancer</p>

“…by inhibiting proliferation, and inducing apoptosis and autophagic cell death. [31][32][33][34][35] However, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report that quercetin, which shows the highest degree among all compounds, is the most important compound of ZJW in the treatment of CRC. Quercetin belongs to the group of polyphenolic compounds termed flavonoids and is abundantly distributed in plants, foods, and beverages.…”

Nanodelivery of Natural Antioxidants: An Anti-aging Perspective

“…These approaches, in particular, allow drug delivery directly to tumor sites without damaging nearby healthy tissues (Ahmad et al, 2018). In in vitro studies, enhanced anti-tumor activity was obtained, compared to respective unmodified substances, for nanoengineered phytobioactive compounds exerting antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities such as resveratrol (Rodenak-Kladniew et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2017), curcumin (Meena et al, 2017;Dhivya et al, 2018;Montalban et al, 2018;Wang W. et al, 2018;Ni et al, 2019;Somu and Paul, 2019;van der Vlies et al, 2019), EGCG (Chavva et al, 2019), berberine (Wang et al, 2014a;Zheng et al, 2018), aloe-emodin (Wang et al, 2012;Chen et al, 2014), and oridonin (Wang et al, 2014b). In mouse models of the induced cancer, substantial inhibition of tumor proliferation and angiogenesis and also enhanced levels of apoptosis of cancerous cells have been found in animals administered, either orally or intravenously, with nanoparticles co-loaded with curcumin, along, or in combination with particular anti-cancer drugs (Wang et al, 2015b(Wang et al, , 2016Yang et al, 2015;Yan et al, 2016;Cui et al, 2017;Kumari et al, 2017;, in comparison to those for free substances.…”