First-line anti-tubercutilosis drugs-loaded starch nanocrystals for combating the threat of M. tuberculosis H37Rv strain.

Nanoparticles-based drug delivery is at the forefront in the field of pharmaceutical and medicinal research to eradicate or alleviate the associated impediments, such as prolonged treatment time, high doses, toxicity and resistance problem of anti-tuberculosis drugs for the treatment of age-old tuberculosis disease. Herein, the first-line anti-tuberculosis drugs were loaded into the biodegradable starch nanocrystals and native starch to improve the therapeutic profile addressing the existing issues related to conventional drugs. The loading performance of anti-tuberculosis drugs with starch nanocrystals and native starch was found in the range of 65-95%. According to the release study, the native starch was not appropriate, however, the starch nanocrystals demonstrated sustained release drug delivery for isoniazid and pyrazinamide ranging from 50 to 93% for 24 h; the burst release for streptomycin was reported at pH 2 in 6.5 h while only 14% rifampicin was released at pH 8 buffer. An anti-mycobacterium analysis of strain H37Rv showed that minimum inhibition concentration of starch nanocrystals loaded with isoniazid and pyrazinamide (0.033 μg/mL and 1.25 μg/mL, respectively) were more effective than the parent isoniazid (0.2 μg/mL) and pyrazinamide (25.0 μg/mL) at pH 5.5.