Nano Packaged Tamoxifen and Curcumin; Effective Formulation Against Sensitive and Resistant Mcf-7 Cells



Hajigholami S¹ ; Malekshahi ZV² ; Bodaghabadi N¹ ; Najafi F³ ; Shirzad H⁴ ; Sadeghizadeh M¹ Show Affiliations
Source: Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research Published:2018

Abstract

Tamoxifen is routinely used for treatment of Estrogen-positive breast carcinoma. Approximately, 50% of patients with metastatic cancer will develop resistance to Tamoxifen. In this research, Tamoxifen was combined with the anti-cancer compound Curcumin. Diblocknanopolymer was used to package the new formulation of Curcumin and Tamoxifen. Anti-cancer efficacy of the obtained compound was evaluated in Tamoxifen-sensitive (TS). MCF-7, Tamoxifen-resistant (TR) MCF-7 cancer cells and Fibroblast cells. MTT assay was used to evaluate anti-proliferation and toxicity. Flow cytometry and Annexin-V-FLUOS were used to assay anti-proliferation and induction of apoptosis respectively. Our results indicate that the obtained nano-compound is less toxic to normal cells compared to Tamoxifen alone, and has higher anti-proliferation and pro-apoptotic activity on TS-MCF-7 and TR-MCF-7. The nanopolymer reduces the Tamoxifen toxicity in normal cells and counters the developed resistance to the drug in cancer cells. © 2018 by School of Pharmacy Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services.