Comparative Studies on Curcumin and 5-FU Incorporated Nanofibrous Scaffolds for Cancer Treatment

Abstract

The present study investigates the two types of anticancer drugs, one from natural compound and other from synthetic one which is commercially available. Curcumin, a natural compound which is derived from Curcuma Longa L, is also known as turmeric powder with high anticancer properties and under clinical trial. 5-Fluorouracil is one of the well-established chemotherapeutic synthetic drugs for various types of cancer treatment, including breast, colon, stomach, etc. Electrospinning process is one of the best nanotechnology methods to produce interconnected porous structure and mimics the human extracellular matrix protein which is mainly helpful for drug delivery applications. Poly (2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) ((pHEMA)) is one of the hydrogel polymers which is mainly used for drug delivery application due to its biocompatible nature. The natural drug curcumin (CU) and synthetic drug 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) were loaded into p(HEMA) and electrospun to produce CU encapsulated p(HEMA) and 5-FU encapsulated p(HEMA) nanofibrous scaffold. The CU and 5-FU encapsulated into p(HEMA) substrate was clearly observed in transmission electron microscopy. Naturally, the CU has high antioxidant activity compared to 5-FU which was confirmed by (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) assay. The CU encapsulated p(HEMA) and 5-FU encapsulated p(HEMA) nanofibrous scaffold biocompatibility was checked by MTT assay using mouse embryonic fibroblast (NIH 3T3) cell lines. The anticancer activity of both CU encapsulated p(HEMA) and 5-FU encapsulated p(HEMA) nanofibrous scaffold was investigated by MTT assay using human cancer (MCF 7) cell lines. Furthermore, the live–dead assay and DAPI staining supports the MTT assay results and validate apoptosis in MCF 7 cell lines. The in vitro CU encapsulated p(HEMA) and 5-FU encapsulated p(HEMA) nanofibrous scaffold were investigated and found that at the end of 8th day, 86% of CU was released, whereas 88% of 5-FU was released in just 3 days. Hence, these results illustrate that electrospun p(HEMA) nanofibrous scaffold serves as a promising substrate for both CU and 5-FU drugs, opening new avenues for targeted cancer treatment.