Enhanced antitumor efficacy and counterfeited cardiotoxicity of combinatorial oral therapy using Doxorubicin- and Coenzyme Q10-liquid crystalline nanoparticles in comparison with intravenous Adriamycin.

UNLABELLED

Present study focuses on enhancing oral antitumor efficacy and safety of Dox-LCNPs in combination with CoQ10-LCNPs. Drug-loaded-LCNPs were prepared by solvent-diffusion-evaporation method and optimized. Median effect analysis suggested dose-reduction-index of 16.84- and 5.047-fold and strong synergism for combination at 1:10 dose ratio owing to higher cellular uptake, nuclear colocalization, higher apoptotic index and 8-OHdG levels. The prophylactic antitumor efficacy of the CoQ10-LCNPs was also established using tumor induction and progression studies. Finally, therapeutic antitumor efficacy was found to be significantly higher (~1.76- and ~4.5-fold) for the combination as compared to Dox-LCNPs (per oral) and Adriamycin (i.v.) respectively. Notably, level of residual tumor burden was insignificant (P>0.05) after 30days in case of combination and LipoDox® (i.v.). Interestingly, with Dox-induced-cardiotoxicity was completely counterfeited in combination. In nutshell, LCNPs pose great potential in improving the therapeutic efficacy of drugs by oral route of administration.

FROM THE CLINICAL EDITOR

This study describes the use of liquid crystalline nanoparticles containing coenzyme Q10 and doxorubicin. The nano-conjugates not only provided an enhanced oral treatment option for a tumor model, but prevented cardiotoxicity, a major complication of this drug when delivered via conventional methods.