Fabrication and Evaluation of Hyaluronic Acid Coated Albumin Nanoparticles for Delivery of Gemcitabine.

Gemcitabine (Gem) is a well-known antineoplastic drug used for several solid tumors. The clinical application of gem is hampered owing to non-selectivity, short half-life, and drug resistance, which necessitate the development of a suitable novel formulation that can selectively target cancer sites. In the present work, Gem-loaded bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (Gem-BSANPs) have been prepared and coated with hyaluronic acid (HA-Gem-BSANPs). Particle size, zeta potential, TEM, and DSC analysis characterized the developed NPs. The mean particle size, PDI, and zeta potentials were observed to be 120.9 ± 5.87 vs 144.7 ± 5.67 and 28.66 ± 1.10 vs -45.72 ± 3.24, for Gem-BSANPs and HA-Gem-BSANPs, respectively. Interestingly, HA-coated Gem-BSANPs were found higher cytotoxic against A549 cell lines with better killing kinetics and mitochondrial membrane loss due to overexpression of CD44. The present work demonstrated that HA-Gem-BSANPs could be a potential strategy to improve the therapeutic efficacy of gem by selectively targeting to the tumor site.