SN38-loaded

Yi-Ping Fang,1,2 Chih-Hung Chuang,3 Yi-Jhun Wu,1 Hsin-Che Lin,1 Yun-Chi Lu4 1School of Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Kaohsiung Medical University, 2Department of Medical Research, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, 3Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology, College of Health Sciences, Kaohsiung Medical University, 4Graduate Institute of Medicine, Collage of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Background: SN38 (7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin) is a camptothecin derivative acts against various tumors. However, SN38 is hydrolyzed in the physiological environment (pH 7.4), and this instability interferes with its potential therapeutic effect. Our objective was to investigate SN38-loaded liposomes to overcome the poor solubility of SN38 and its biodistribution, which further diminish its toxicity.Materials and methods: The sub-100 nm targeted liposomes was employed to deliver SN-38 and evaluate the characterization, release behaviors, cytotoxicity, in vivo pharmacokinetics and biochemical assay.Results: The SN38-loaded targeted liposomes consisted of small (100.49 nm) spherical nanoparticles with negative charge (-37.93 mV) and high entrapment efficiency (92.47%). The release behavior of the SN38-loaded targeted liposomes was fitted with Higuchi kinetics (R2=0.9860). Free SN38 presented initial burst release. The IC50 for the SN38-loaded targeted liposomes (0.11 µM) was significantly lower than for the SN38 solution (0.37 µM) in the MCF7 cell line (P