Effect of Hyperthermia and Triblock Copolymeric Nanoparticles as Quercetin Carrier on DU145 Prostate Cancer Cells

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of PEG-PBA-PEG nanoparticles as a carrier of quercetin and hyper- thermia on the clonogenicity and DNA damages in spheroid model of DU 145 prostate carcinoma cell lines. Therefore, DU145 cells were cultured as spheroids and treated with different concentrations of quercetin / or nanoparticles as quercetin carriers for 24 hours and hyper- thermia at 43°C for 60 minutes. After hyperthermic treatment, the colony forming ability and the induced DNA damages were examined. Our results showed that colony number decreased and DNA damages increased along with the increase of the concentration of free quer- cetin and quercetin encapsulated in the nanoparticles in combination with hyperthermia. However, the extent of reduction of clonogenic- ity and induction of DNA damages caused by quercetin encapsulated in nanoparticles in combination with hyperthermia significantly in- creased compared with free quercetin. Since drug loaded nanoparticles could deliver quercetin more efficiently into the cells, PEG-PBA- PEG nanoparticles are stable and effective drug delivery vehicles for quercetin.