Introduction: The aim of this study was to obtain and characterize pullulan acetate-based nanoparticles, loaded with an anticancer agent, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). The 5-FU agent is a first-line chemotherapeutic agent, employed in the treatment of various types of cancer, such as: gastric, pancreatic and esophageal cancer, breast cancer, head and neck cancer, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, etc. However, 5-FU has a short biological half-life, non-selective distribution, variable oral bioavailability and toxicity, which limits its therapeutic applicability. A way to overcome these limitations is by loading 5-FU in nanoparticles [1,2,3]. Materials and Methods: Pullulan was produced through a fermentation process, by Aureobasidium pullulans strain, and was further chemically modified with dimethylformamide, pyridine and acetic anhydride to obtain pullulan acetate. The 5-FU-loaded pullulan acetate nanoparticles were obtained by various methods: nanoprecipitation method, modified nanoprecipitation method and double emulsion method. Nanoparticles were characterized in terms of entrapment efficiency, size and polydispersity index, using spectrophotometric and dynamic light scattering techniques. Results: The 5-FU-loaded pullulan acetate nanoparticles were successfully produced by the three methods (nanoprecipitation, modified nanoprecipitation and double emulsion). All samples showed nanometric size and narrow polydispesity index. Conclusions: This study shows that pullulan and its derivatives have a great potential for the production of nanoparticles, with application in the biomedical field, including for the delivery of anticancer agents, as 5-fluorouracil.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, R.-D.P., F.S. and M.M.; Investigation, R.-D.P., F.S., C.H., O.G., M.S., C.S., M.P. and M.E.; Methodology, R.-D.P., F.S., C.H., O.G., M.S., C.S., M.P. and M.E.; Supervision, R.-D.P.; Visualization, R.-D.P.; Writing—original draft, R.-D.P. and F.S.; Writing—review & editing, R.-D.P. and F.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization program NUCLEU PN 1941-04 01.
Institutional Review Board Statement
Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement
Not applicable.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
- Schirrmacher, V. From chemotherapy to biological therapy: A review of novel concepts to reduce the side effects of systemic cancer treatment. Int. J. Oncol. 2019, 54, 407–419. [Google Scholar] [PubMed]
- Huang, L.; Chaurasiya, B.; Wu, D.; Wang, H.; Du, Y.; Tu, J.; Webster, T.; Sun, C. Versatile redox-sensitive pullulan nanoparticles for enhanced liver targeting and efficient cancer therapy. Nanomed. Nanotechnol. Biol. Med. 2018, 14, 1005–1017. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
- Hossen, S.; Hossain, K.; Basher, M.K.; Mia, M.N.H.; Rahman, M.T.; Jalal Uddind, M. Smart nanocarrier-based drug delivery systems for cancer therapy and toxicity studies: A review. J. Adv. Res. 2019, 15, 1–18. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. |
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).