Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Dec;196(12):8763-8790.
doi: 10.1007/s12010-024-04987-3. Epub 2024 Jun 27.

Antibacterial, Antifungal, and Cytotoxic Potential of PlumbaginLoaded pH-Responsive Vaginal Nanoformulations

Tamil Mani Subi  1 , Nandhakumar Selvasudha  1 , Sivakumar Priyadharshini  1 , Pradeep Kumar  2 , Rakesh Singh  2 , Hannah Rachel Vasanthi  3
Affiliations

Antibacterial, Antifungal, and Cytotoxic Potential of PlumbaginLoaded pH-Responsive Vaginal Nanoformulations

Tamil Mani Subi et al. Appl Biochem Biotechnol. 2024 Dec.

Abstract

Plumbagin is a naphthoquinone from the roots of the Plumbago species and exhibits anticancer activity. Translational usage of plumbagin in biomedical sciences is restricted due to its poor solubility and bioavailability. Therefore, pH-responsive plumbagin-loaded vaginal nanoformulations with polylactic acid (PLA)-chitosan polymeric coat were fabricated by inotropic gelation technique. Among the four (F1, F2, F3, F4) nanoformulations prepared, F3 exhibited good interaction of polymers with plumbagin as evidenced by FTIR, XRD, and thermal analysis. The positive zeta potential (48.4 ± 5.57 mV), optimal size (694 ± 65.76 nm), low PDI (0.157), and good encapsulation efficiency (77.8 ± 3.62%) of F3 were significant. The indirect method of drug loading (58.35 ± 5.00%) confirmed the drug content of about 495.44 ± 5.00 µg of plumbagin in 1 mg of F3. The drug loading pattern was confirmed by TEM analysis, and the spherical morphology of the nanocomposite was confirmed by SEM analysis. F3 formulation showed 46% and 25.2% of drug release in 24 h in simulated vaginal fluid at pH 4.5 and 7 respectively with sustained release and hydrolyses of lactic acid from PLA. Among all the nanoformulations evaluated, nanoformulation F3 with promising physicochemical properties showed good antifungal and antibacterial activity against various fungal and bacterial strains. F3 exhibited potent cytotoxicity with an IC50 of 3.6 ± 0.12 µg/ml for HeLa and an IC50 of 0.81 ± 0.01 µg/ml for SiHa cells. Altogether, the nanoformulation F3 exhibited potent antimicrobial activity against vaginal infections and cytotoxicity against cervical cancer cell lines.

Keywords: Inotropic gelation; Nanoformulations; Plumbagin; Vaginal; pH-responsive.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate: The work does not involve any human or animal subjects for ethical approval and consent to participate. Consent for Publication: The work does not involve any human subjects for consent to publish. Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

References

    1. Faheem, A. M., & Abdelkader, D. H. (2020). 1 - Novel drug delivery systems. In A. Seyfoddin, S. M. Dezfooli, & C. A. B. T.-E. D. D. S. Greene (Eds.), Woodhead publishing series in biomaterials (pp. 1–16). Woodhead Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102548-2.00001-9
    1. Cabane, E., Zhang, X., Langowska, K., Palivan, C. G., & Meier, W. (2012). Stimuli-responsive polymers and their applications in nanomedicine. Biointerphases, 7(1–4), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13758-011-0009-3 - DOI
    1. Rahim, M. A., et al. (2021). Recent advancements in stimuli responsive drug delivery platforms for active and passive cancer targeting. Cancers, 13(4), 1–52. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13040670 . Basel. - DOI
    1. Lopes, J., Santos, G., Barata, P., Oliveira, R., & Lopes, C. (2013). Physical and chemical stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems: Targeted delivery and main routes of administration. Current Pharmaceutical Design, 19(41), 7169–7184. https://doi.org/10.2174/13816128113199990698 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Schmaljohann, D. (2006). Thermo- and pH-responsive polymers in drug delivery. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 58(15), 1655–1670. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addr.2006.09.020 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources