Sol-gel encapsulation and characterization of naphthoquinone type compounds
Project no. 743 · Status: Kapanmış · 2016
Summary
Alkannin is a natural compound from Alkanna tinctoria and it exhibits anticancer activity through the naphthazarin scaffold. In this study, previously isolated and purified ß,ß-dimethylacryl alkannin was encapsulated in silica-PAMAM dendrimer with sol-gel technique using 0.25 M TEOS hydrolysate as a precursor. Firstly, different buffer types (sodium phosphate buffer and phosphate buffered saline) at different concentrations and pH values were optimized and then different mixing platforms (traditional batch production, and microfluidic platform where mixing is in T-junction microchannel continuously) were investigated in terms of particle size distribution which was determined using dynamic light scattering by Malvern Zetasizer Nano-ZS (Malvern Inst. Ltd., UK) and also synthesized nanoparticles were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, FTIR. The optimum concentrations of compounds were 0.01 M PBS (pH 7.4) through traditional batch experiments yielding the lowest particle size of 182.9±3.3 nm (±SEM). On the other hand, the mean size of nanoparticles was decreased to 161.05±1.45 nm using T-junction micromixer and a more rapid synthesis was achieved in comparison to the traditional batch synthesis. Additionally, cytotoxicity of ß,ß-dimethylacrylalkannin against human liver carcinoma, HepG2 cells, was studied at a dose-dependent manner using 3D hydrogel. The PrestoBlue assay indicated that 3.125 µg/ml concentration ß,ß-dimethylacrylalkannin exhibited the lowest cell viabilities at day 3 and 7. The synthesized silica-PAMAM dendrimer hybrid nanoparticles might provide further routes to the particle formation research in the field of noninvasive drug delivery systems. Moreover, microfluidic systems are powerful platforms to synthesize nanoparticles with high reproducibility, controllability and suitable for large-scale production of drug-loaded nanoparticles.