Synthesis of Curcumin Nanoparticles from Raw Turmeric Rhizome

Abstract

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) has been used as a spice and a medicinal herb since ancient times. The main active ingredient of turmeric is curcumin, a polyphenol that helps prevent and control neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular, metabolic, inflammatory, and autoimmune diseases and some cancers. However, curcumin has drawbacks such as low water-solubility, poor absorption, fast metabolism, quick systemic elimination, low bioavailability, poor pharmacokinetics, low stability, and low penetration targeting efficacy. To overcome these drawbacks, a common method used is encapsulating curcumin in nanocarriers for targeted delivery. However, the degraded products of nanocarriers have raised concerns. In this research, we synthesized nanoparticles of curcumin, nanocurcumin without using nanocarriers. To do so, curcumin was soxhlet extracted from raw turmeric rhizome. The stock solutions of different curcumin concentrations prepared in dichloromethane were added to boiling water at different flow rates and sonicated for different time intervals. An average particle size of 82 ± 04 nm was obtained with 5.00 mg/mL stock solution concentration, at 0.10 mL/min flow rate and 30 min sonication time. The particle size tends to increase with the flow rate and the concentration of curcumin in the stock solution but decreases with the sonication time. X-ray diffraction shows sharp and intense diffraction peaks for curcumin, indicating its identity and high crystallinity, but nanocurcumins are amorphous. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy spectra confirm the presence of all the functional groups of curcumin in nanocurcumin. Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images show the perfectly spherical morphology of nanocurcumin. Although curcumin is not water-soluble, nanocurcumin formulations are freely dispersible in water.

New Peptide-Drug Conjugates for Precise Targeting of SORT1-Mediated Vasculogenic Mimicry in the Tumor Microenvironment of TNBC-Derived MDA-MB-231 Breast and Ovarian ES-2 Clear Cell Carcinoma Cells

“…Genistein was found to reduce VM in melanoma by down-regulating vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin (43), isoxanthohumol reduced VM in breast cancer cells (44), curcumin has been shown to inhibit VM in squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx, hepatocellular carcinoma and murine choroidal melanoma (45)(46)(47)(48), and green tea-derived catechins inhibited in vitro VM in ovarian and prostate cancer cell models (49,50). However, the use of curcumin and green tea catechins in therapy suffers major drawbacks including their poor absorption, fast metabolism, quick systemic elimination, low bioavailability, poor pharmacokinetics, low stability, and low penetration targeting efficacy (51,52). Such limitations in future therapeutic applications may efficiently be circumvented through the current peptide-drug conjugation for precise targeting strategies described herein.…”

Effects of curcumin and γ‑oryzanol solid dispersion on the brain of middle‑aged rats

“…Curcumin and γ-oryzanol compounds exhibit a wide range of pharmacological properties, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and anti-diabetic properties (9)(10)(11)(12)30). Nevertheless, both compounds have been reported to be limited with regard to their use as a nutritional product given their low water-solubility, resulting in low absorption and bioavailability (13)(14)(15)(16). The present study prepared curcumin and γ-oryzanol as a solid dispersion to enhance their water solubility.…”

“…Moreover, these two elements have been identified as compounds that increase antioxidant levels such as those of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) (9)(10)(11)(12). However, studies have found that the beneficial effects of curcumin and γ-oryzanol are limited by their low water-solubility, leading to low bioavailability (13)(14)(15)(16). Therefore, curcumin and γ-oryzanol were prepared in a solid dispersion to enhance their water solubility.…”

A Three‐In‐One Assembled Nanoparticle Containing Peptide–Radio‐Sensitizer Conjugate and TLR7/8 Agonist Can Initiate the Cancer‐Immunity Cycle to Trigger Antitumor Immune Response

“…[9] Such scenarios can be largely avoided if the nanoparticles could be self-assembled by therapeutic agent with excellent biocompatibility. [10] Recently, therapeutic peptide self-assembly has been widely used to construct nanocarrier and deliver drugs due to their amphiphilicity, good biocompatibility, ease to synthesize, convenience for modification, etc. [11] Moreover, abundant research indicated that amphiphilic peptides with hydrophobic and hydrophilic chains can self-assemble into nanostructures mediated by intermolecular forces.…”