Shivani Rai Paliwal
Accepted Abstracts: Pharmaceut Anal Acta
The aim of present study was the development of hyaluronic acid (HA)-targeted pH-sensitive liposomes (SL-pH-HA) for intracellular delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) in the cancer cell that express CD44. The in vitro release studies demonstrated that the release of DOX from SL-pH-HA was pH-dependent, i.e., faster at mildly acidic pH ~5, compared to physiological pH ~7.4. SL-pH-HA was evaluated for cytotoxicity potential on MCF-7 cells. The quantitative uptake study by flow cytometry revealed higher localization of targeted liposomes in the receptor positive cells, which was further confirmed by fluorescent microscopy. The in vivo antitumor activity in tumor bearing mice was also confirmed the efficacy of HA targeted pH-sensitive liposomes. The major side-effect of DOX i.e., cardiotoxicity was also estimated by measuring serum enzyme level. Thus, HA targeted pH-sensitive liposomes were significantly more potent than the non-targeted liposomes in cells expressing high levels of CD44, which suggests that they may be a useful targeted drug carrier to treat CD44-expressing breast tumors.