Delivery of antiinflammatory nutraceuticals by nanoparticles for the prevention and treatment of cancer

Abstract

Extensive research within the last two decades has revealed that most chronic illnesses, including cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, are mediated through chronic inflammation. Thus, suppressing chronic inflammation has the potential to delay, prevent, and even treat various chronic diseases, including cancer. Various nutraceuticals from fruits, vegetables, vitamins, spices, legumes, and traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine have been shown to safely suppress proinflammatory pathways; however, their low bioavailability in vivo limits their use in preventing and treating cancer. We describe here the potential of nanotechnology to fill this gap. Several nutraceuticals, including curcumin, green tea polyphenols, coenzyme Q, quercetin, thymoquinone and others, have been packaged as nanoparticles and proven to be useful in "nanochemoprevention" and "nano-chemotherapy".

Fig.1. Different types of nanoparticles

Diagrammatic representation of some commonly nanocarriers used for the delivery of neutraceuticals. These include dendrimers, virus nanoparticles, and magnetic nanoparticles.

Figure 2. Physical characterization of the nanoparticles

Some of the commonly used methods to characterize the nanoparticles are depicted in the figure. A- Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of nanoparticles; B- Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image; C- SEM image of nanoparticles after mechanical extrusion; D – Determination of size distribution of nanoparticles by use of dynamic light scattering (DLS).