Curcumin Nanoparticles as Promising Therapeutic Agents for Drug Targets

Abstract

Curcuma longa is very well-known medicinal plant not only in the Asian hemisphere but also known across the globe for its therapeutic and medicinal benefits. The active moiety of Curcuma longa is curcumin and has gained importance in various treatments of various disorders such as antibacterial, antiprotozoal, cancer, obesity, diabetics and wound healing applications. Several techniques had been exploited as reported by researchers for increasing the therapeutic potential and its pharmacological activity. Here, the dictum is the new room for the development of physicochemical, as well as biological, studies for the efficacy in target specificity. Here, we discussed nanoformulation techniques, which lend support to upgrade the characters to the curcumin such as enhancing bioavailability, increasing solubility, modifying metabolisms, and target specificity, prolonged circulation, enhanced permeation. Our manuscript tried to seek the attention of the researcher by framing some solutions of some existing troubleshoots of this bioactive component for enhanced applications and making the formulations feasible at an industrial production scale. This manuscript focuses on recent inventions as well, which can further be implemented at the community level.

Keywords: Curcuma longa; anticancer; curcumin; nanoformulation; turmeric.

Figure 1

Schematic representation of curcumin extraction.

Figure 2

Difference in the delivery mechanism of free curcumin and nanocurcumin.

Figure 3

A schematic representation of wound healing activity of nanocurcumin study.

Figure 4

Schematic representation of anti-tumor activity of nanocurcumin.